Shadow Man
by Alteva
Summary: Reimagining The Last Stand and beyond so it becomes a story of love, loyalty, monsters, and 10th dimensional physics. Chapter 23 posted. Rated T. Scott&Rogue romance but also SJ
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I own nothing from the X-men world. I just enjoy playing with the characters.

Author's Note: While most of this story happens outside the actual movie (The Last Stand) when a scene from the movie is used, some or all of the dialogue will be directly from the original source.

Chapter One

"It'll be fine, Peter." Marie sat on the bench along the wall of the gym and rubbed her ankle. "It's not even really twisted. I just landed wrong."

"I shouldn't have thrown you so far. I'm --"

"--It's okay!" She leapt to her feet and had to hide a wince as pain bit her. If she grimaced, he'd be apologizing again. "I'm not mad at you, Peter. I'm really not. And, in a real fight no one is going to be nice to me. It's better practice if you aren't either."

He nodded, still obviously unhappy, and returned to the practice mats where Logan had stepped in to take her place. Marie eased herself back down onto the bench. The ankle wasn't bad, she knew. Just a little pull that would be gone by morning if she managed to ice it well tonight. It wasn't the injury making her snap at Peter and hate everyone in the room. She wasn't sure exactly what was bothering her.

The exercise for the evening was pointless. They'd been supposed to run through a new set of Danger Room scenarios. But, with the uproar over the announcement of a cure for mutation, no one on the staff had managed to upload the programs and test them in time. So, it was hand-to-hand combat practice in the gym instead. They could have just skipped the whole thing. The people in charge hardly seemed to care about the team anymore, anyway.

"Stupid," she muttered to herself.

"What's stupid?" Storm sat down on the bench beside Marie.

"This exercise. What good is me fighting Peter? He can't get a good workout against me and I have no hope of winning against him unless I use my powers. Now, he just feels bad because he tossed me too hard."

"That bad landing was your fault, Rogue. You were distracted."

Marie forced herself not to glance over to where Bobby and Kitty were wrestling each other to the mat. How many times did that girl have to practice the same grab and pin technique? "I know I was. I'll be more careful next time."

"Is there going to be a next time?"

Marie lied, "Sure, why wouldn't there be?"

"Because you're still thinking about this cure." Storm made a face as if even the mention tasted bad. "You're thinking about giving up on being an X-man."

There wasn't much point in denying that. Everyone at the school must have seen her expression when the announcement came earlier in the day. She'd practically bolted to the professor's office for confirmation. So far, between dinner and practice, no less than five people had come up and challenged her on whether or not she'd take it. Every one of them made clear they thought doing so would make her a traitor. Bobby included.

"Is that so horrible?" she asked quietly. "It would be a lot easier if I weren't a mutant."

"You'd still be a mutant," Storm said. "You'd just be a mutant without access to your powers. Is that what you want?"

_Was it?_ She let herself look at Bobby. Kitty was helping him to his feet. He was laughing and gesturing -- something about the exercise. Marie felt an invisible fist squeeze her stomach.

Two nights ago they'd argued. She'd said horrible things to him about only wanting sex. That wasn't fair, and she'd yet to find the words to apologize for the accusation.

Their problem wasn't sex. Their problem wasn't infidelity. She didn't really believe Bobby would cheat on her, or that Kitty would let him. The problem was she could never have anything close to a normal life with him. She was jealous of the mere fact that Kitty could touch him and she couldn't. Her power was always in the way, a barrier to everything that could have been so good in her life.

"I just want to be normal, Storm. Is that so hard to understand?"

"No, it's not hard to understand. Everyone wants to fit in. But, the question you need to ask yourself is who do you want to fit in with."

Storm meant it to be a choice between the right side and the wrong sides -- Magneto and the X-men. But, Magneto was a wanted man, hardly the threat he once was. And there wasn't much left of the X-men anymore -- Storm and Logan and her friends were it, if they were honest about things. Dr. Grey was dead. Cyclops was gone even when he showed up. No one had seen him for two days and no one even wondered about where he was. The professor was too busy with politics.

Marie leaned back and took in the whole gym. The too-white lights glared and hurt her eyes. The stark metal walls intensified the sharp light. Peter's grunts as he fought Logan, Kitty and Bobby's laughter, Storm's question all echoed in the space. It all felt hollow and separate from her. She suddenly missed the paint-chipped cinderblock of her old high school gym.

The thought of choosing where she wanted to belong reverberated too. As if so many people wanted her. Her parents loved her, but they were terrified of her. She couldn't go home as long as her mutation remained uncontrollable. But, she didn't really belong here at the school either. Oh, everyone tried to pretend she did. For a time, she'd even let herself believe them, especially when Bobby had been trying so hard to make her accept a relationship with him. But, now that she'd graduated, she'd become a stranger again.

She'd hoped becoming an X-man would help. Instead, she just got a first row seat for watching the whole team fall apart.

"You know, Rogue, none of us had an easy time in the beginning. We all have to adjust to being different. But, you're strong. You can do it. And we need you." Storm put an arm around Marie's shoulders. "Think about what might have happened if you hadn't been there to stop John when he was attacking the police outside Bobby's parent's house, or if you hadn't thought to fly the jet over and save us at Alkali Lake."

"Bobby would have frozen John. And I'm sure he would have flown the jet to save you. He might have been able to land it without crashing, too." If she hadn't crashed the plane, Dr. Grey wouldn't have had to free them, and die. Then, Cyclops wouldn't have destroyed himself with grief. The team would still be whole. "I'm not needed here."

"None of that is necessarily true," Storm insisted and she hugged Marie a bit tighter. "You wouldn't be here if we didn't need you."

The tightness in Marie's stomach was crawling up her spine now. She clenched her fists until she felt her nails digging into her palms. Storm's hold, intended to comfort, reminded Marie that she'd had to wear a turtleneck under her sweats so her neck would be covered during practice. She could feel the pressure of the embrace, but nothing more. She couldn't even remember what it felt like to be touched skin to skin in a lingering, loving way -- a hug from her mother or father, a girlfriend clamping down on her hands as they talked about boys.

Was having done a good job, as if anything she'd done really was a good job, supposed to substitute for that closeness? She didn't think Storm would understand that question if she asked it.

Tears burned in the corners of her eyes and she fought them. "Fine, I did good. I get that. I'm proud of it all. Can I go shower now?"

"Rogue, I'm not trying to make you cry. I just want you to see how valuable you are to--"

"To what? To the team? To the cause?" Marie lost her fight and blinked furiously as her sight blurred.

"To all of us, yes. You are a unique and wonderful person. Why can't you see that?"

"Because it's not me," she screamed. "How am I unique and wonderful? All I do here is suck the life out of people. I want to just be Marie again."

"That's not true."

"It is. You don't want Marie. Maybe you want Rogue because you think in some wildly improbable scenario my power will come in handy. But, for what? You want to use me to kill someone? I don't want to be team assassin."

Anger flared across Storm's beautiful face. "That is not fair and you know it."

It wasn't. Not really. The people here had taken her in, taught her, befriended her. They'd rescued her from Magneto who really had wanted to just use her power and throw her away. But, in the end, they wanted the same thing he did, to use what she could do. And, if she couldn't hurt people anymore, she wouldn't have any value to them.

Marie sagged until her elbows rested on her knees. She put her face in her hands. She had to stop being such a bitch all the time. "I'm just tired of having to be Rogue all the time."

Storm squeezed Marie's shoulder tight. "You're still working with the professor on controlling your power, aren't you? He hasn't given up hope. You shouldn't either."

"He's been so busy lately. We've barely had time for sessions." What was the point of the sessions anyway? She'd been here nearly a year and a half and she had no better control than she had when she arrived. Maybe that was what was really bothering her. She was finally losing hope.

"Give it time. The good solutions are never fast or easy." Storm's voice had a honed edge to it now. Marie could tell her patience was wearing. "This cure is a shortcut, a lie. Don't fall for it."

Marie knew the right answer. She should nod and agree. But, she didn't agree. "How is it a lie, Storm? It works. What's wrong with accepting a solution that works instead of waiting forever for one that never will?"

"What's wrong with it?" Storm stared at the ceiling a moment, maybe wishing they weren't several stories underground where she couldn't access any lightening bolts. "Everything is wrong with it. They are treating us as a disease. They are trying to change who and what we are. They are trying to make themselves feel more secure by destroying our self-worth. What could be right with that?"

Marie watched the rest of the team head off to the showers. Bobby glanced over his shoulder at her once, then shook his head and turned. A cord holding Marie's heart together snapped. Anger unfurled inside her. "What's right with it? I could hold his hand, for one thing. I could give him a kiss."

She threw off Storm's arm before the other woman could reply. She didn't want to have this argument anymore. It wasn't helping. She was more miserable now than when Storm came over. "I know you don't think that's important, Storm. It's all causes and ideals for you. But, for me, it's about simple life. It's about people. When do we get to stop thinking about causes and start thinking just about people?"

"Rogue, that's not what I meant." Storm tried to catch her arm, but Marie dove for the door. "Marie, wait."

She didn't. She couldn't. She quickened her pace, not caring that her ankle throbbed with every step, until she reached the showers. There, safely enclosed and under the water, she beat the walls until she no longer felt like screaming.

-----

Scott had to force his way through the fog, as if each tiny bead of water fought his passage. He couldn't hear his footsteps over the rocks. Not one pebble skittered beneath his boots. A stray thought tickled him mind. _Gray is such a cold color._

He shook his head to clear it. The world looked strange without the red barrier of his glasses, but there was no time to admire the scenery or worry about where Jean had hidden his power. Right now he had to figure out what happened to her.

He pushed through the unnatural air until he found her lying near the edge of the water. His first instinct was to drag her into his arms and hold her tight. But, instead he knelt cautiously, not allowing himself to touch her just yet. He didn't know what had triggered the burst of power that nearly exploded the world around them only moments earlier, and he didn't want to repeat the effect.

The hushed sound of her breathing competed with the quiet lap of water against the shore. Scott realized how silent the rest of the world had become. Jean's expression was serene. She looked like she did when she slept without dreams, peaceful and beautiful. Several strands of her long hair lay across her face, caught on her parted lips. Her breath quivered the copper threads. Carefully, Scott stroked his forefinger across her mouth.

The strands didn't move. It was as if they were glued in place. Her lips felt stiff as wood. His finger couldn't press into their softness. He jerked his hand back. What the hell was wrong with Jean? What had he done to her? Or what had she done to herself?

Fear scratched a warning across his skin. He focused on his senses, searching for a source of danger. But, he felt only the strange press of the air around him and the excessive hardness of the ground below. The world seemed to be trying to squeeze him out of existence. The cause of all this strangeness, however, remained illusive.

Enough. The questions could wait for a safer place. He had Jean back, an impossibility in and of itself. He needed to figure out how to hold her unconscious body on his bike and drive away from this evil spot before trying to figure out anything more.

Scott rested his hand briefly on Jean's shoulder, then tried to slide his arm beneath her. He'd lifted her a hundred times at least. Tall as she was, she had always been light in his arms. Now, he couldn't even wedge his fingers beneath her shoulders or knees. He gritted his teeth and strained his muscles, but couldn't push his hands between her body and the ground. She might as well have weighed tons.

Panting, he sat back and stared at her. She still looked peacefully asleep. Her chest still rose and fell with her quiet breaths, and the tiny hairs across her mouth -- the ones he'd been unable to brush away -- still quivered slightly against her lips. She looked so right. But, something was very, very wrong.

"God damn it." Bad enough to lose her. To regain her only to have her taken away again was unbearable. He closed his hands around her arms.

"Come on, Jean. Don't do this. Wake up and help me help you." Shaking her proved as impossible as lifting her. She was like a statue carved from stone -- warm, breathing stone. "I can't leave you behind again. I won't. You have to wake up. Please."

She couldn't, or wouldn't obey.

Scott released his hold reluctantly. No amount of shouting was going to wake her. He couldn't move her. He could not leave her. He sat back on his heels, chin ducked tight against his chest, and ran shaking hands through his mist-dampened hair. His jaws ached, he'd clenched them so hard. Her peaceful expression was a lie. She might be a lie. He turned his head, unable to look at her suddenly.

In that instant of despair he saw the monster. It crouched, mud-colored and indistinct, just behind Jean's head. A death-sweet stench curled out from it, making Scott's stomach lurch.

He pivoted toward it. His hand touched his temple before he remembered that he wasn't wearing his visor or that Jean had turned off his power. When he moved, the thing vanished.

The hairs on the back of Scott's neck stood stiff and he felt a slow, cold sweat run down his spine. It was the scent that told him the thing had been real rather than a trick of his mind. Illusions didn't smell. Slowly, Scott canted his head back down, tilting to one side as he had before. He focused on the very edge of his vision and the thing rotated into view. It was like a holographic image, shifting with his perspective. He held his breath, afraid even the minor movement of his chest might cause him to lose sight of the mass that huddled behind Jean.

Wet as half-congealed jelly, larger than his torso, it squatted on above her head. Hundreds of long hair-like limbs spread out from its back, each ending in a dark pustule. Its miniscule head held six reddish eyes and a long snout that it thrust into Jean's chest, right into her heart. It whined, thin and shrill, and the stench of death, rolling off it in waves, continued to twist Scott's stomach.

He wished he could blast the thing out of existence. But, even if he could use his power, that would be too risky. He measured carefully the distance between his hand and the horrible beak protruding from Jean's body. Could he, from this position, rip the monster out of her? If he succeeded, would she survive?

One red eye focused on him, and Scott's muscles tightened for flight. He realized what it was to be a mouse in the eye of a hawk -- frozen, doomed. Another eye pivoted in his direction. He knew, somehow, that if all six of those red eyes found him he would die. His body made the choice for him. Despite his training, he dove backwards out of the way. He landed hard on his ass in the rocks a good three feet from Jean.

His heart stampeded inside his chest. His breath came in tight, quick gasps. He couldn't remember feeling that afraid.

The monster had disappeared the moment he moved. But, he knew it was still there, still clinging to Jean. He needed to save her. He needed to find the courage to confront those deadly eyes again, to somehow kill the thing that owned them. Still shaking, he pulled himself back to Jean.

Storm's voice cut through the fog. "I can take care of that."

Her winds escalated to hurricane force almost immediately. The air stung Scott's eyes, pushed the breath out of his lungs. He grabbed at the stones, barely catching hold of a large outcrop before being pushed along the ground. Why the hell was Ororo using so much power?

Leaves floated past, twisting lazily. Scott looked over at Jean. Her hair stirred softly in what had to be a light breeze. Why did it feel like a hurricane to him?

The wind died as abruptly as it began, dropping Scott to the ground. He lay there a moment under the now clear sky, stunned, aching. Scott had a pretty good working understanding of physics. For Storm's gentle wind to nearly blow him into the lake he'd have to have a mass roughly equal to the leaves scattered around him. Jean hadn't been turned to living stone by the monster. He simply hadn't had the strength to lift her.

He'd been changed, not Jean, not the world. His body, which felt normal and solid to him, must have almost no substance in the real world.

"How does that happen?" he muttered. But, he knew he couldn't afford to ponder this new problem at the moment. Ororo was coming down the rocky beach toward Jean. She shouted for Logan. Scott knew from the way she was moving that she hadn't seen the monster yet.

"Storm, be careful!" he shouted. She ignored him, falling to her knees beside Jean. Putting her hand on Jean's hair, stroking the long strands gently, right over the place where the monster sat. Nothing happened. Scott released his breath. She hadn't heard him, but at least she hadn't been hurt, yet.

Logan arrived a moment later, all passion and irritating possessiveness. The monster didn't attack him either. Logan had no trouble lifting Jean in his arms.

But, neither of his teammates acknowledged Scott, sitting not ten feet from them. Even focused as they were on Jean, one of them should have looked up and asked him what had happened to her. Clearly, they couldn't see him, or hear him, or sense him in any way.

Which meant what? That he was invisible? That he, like the monster, was compacted in some way so that he could only be seen from a very particular angle? That he was dead? Scott considered that last option. He supposed it was possible, but he couldn't work up much concern one way or the other. The professor would tell him that was a bad sign. The professor would probably be right.

Still, alive or dead didn't matter to him. The monster attached to Jean did. He got to his feet and started toward the jet after Logan and Ororo. They were taking Jean home and Scott suspected that if he didn't get on that plane with them, he'd have a damned hard time following any other way back to New York.

He had the chance now that he'd been denied him all those months ago when Alkali Lake swallowed her. He was going to save her.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's note: I want to thank everyone who left comments on chapter one and who has put the story/me on favorites and alerts. It's a bit daunting to dive back into this fan writing thing after being away so long and the warm reception is great. For those who are a bit confused about what's going on with Scott, I promise explanations are coming. Please continue to tell me what you like, and what you don't. All feedback is helpful. Thanks again.

As to updates: I expect to put up a new chapter every weekend at least, though it's difficult for me to predict which day of the weekend that will happen on. This weekend, I'm early.

* * *

Chapter Two

"I'm sorry Rogue, I can't discuss it now. Come by my office tomorrow." Professor Xavier barely paused to address Marie.

She didn't follow him down the corridor. What was the point? It had been stupid to even ask when he was so distracted with… well, with whatever had sent the entire population of the school into panic two hours ago. _He's probably got something way more important than my problems to deal with. I shouldn't be mad._

She wasn't mad, not really. But, she'd been not-really-mad so often the past few months that her frustration was at the explosion point. All she'd wanted was a truly honest assessment of whether she would ever learn to control her power. It shouldn't have taken that long to say, 'Yes, Rogue, I'm sure you'll learn if you just keep practicing' or 'I'm sorry, I think you'll be this way the rest of your life.'

Just an opinion. It hadn't seemed like too much a moment ago. Apparently, it was.

The cure was on the news every hour now, and the television downstairs was on news channel continuously. Every student in the school was talking about it. Everyone on staff was too. Marie was tired of being bombarded by it, tired of being told that she had to take a side right now and, of course, that side had to be against the cure.

Some of the arguments made sense. Was it possible to trust a drug company and the government to be altruistic? Given what she knew about prior government-sanctioned plans for mutants -- Senator Kelly's registration bills, and Stryker's labs -- it was hard to believe there wouldn't be control drugs in the shot, or even poison. But, Marie thought there was some hope that there were still good people out there who just wanted to help mutants who were suffering from, rather than enjoying, their powers.

She straightened her shoulders and headed back toward her room. Once there, she closed her door and sat on her bed. She ripped off her gloves.

_I can't believe I'm going to do this again. It's so stupid. It never helps._ She crossed her arms and pressed her hands to her face, thumbs toward her lips. She willed herself to not feel through her fingers, to only feel through her face. _Pretend they're someone else's hands._

The palms were warm, the fingers slightly damp, like her mother's hands. Marie let her mind drift back to a time when she could still feel her mother's hands on her face. That memory usually brought her comfort. She smiled briefly, but the mother-image wouldn't last. She needed the other fantasy now.

Her mind drifted to the boy she'd first kissed, and his voice screamed terror in her mind before she could even begin to enjoy that fantasy. She couldn't think of Bobby either, or Logan. They were inside her too, in pain from her power.

She let thumbs brush her mouth and conjured her shadow lover, the indistinct and imagined man who could touch her safely. His hands were strong. If he were real, his fingers would be slightly rough, more male than her own. But, she had to make due with what she had, so she discarded that thought.

He smelled of spice, not quite cologne, maybe just the soap he used -- her soap. She imagined he'd showered in her bathroom and used her soap. It was as good an explanation as any to keep the illusion going. A nail stroked her lips -- a subtle pain. Then the fingers moved down to trace her jaw. Her throat. Lower.

She felt her body relaxing. He didn't need to kiss her. He just wanted contact. Touching her made him alive the same way it made her alive. _If only he wasn't an illusion._

The monster twitched occasionally, but showed no sign of real discomfort or even concern about whatever Charles was doing to Jean as she lay on the examining table. The creature seemed primarily interested in hunting Scott. It let out a thin sonic whine and its eyes swiveled slowly as it searched the infirmary.

Scott's every instinct said, 'attack.' But, instinct worked best when tempered with planning and reason. He couldn't merely want to kill it. He had to know he would kill it when he tried.

He already knew his eyes were no longer a weapon. Jean had sealed that power away in his head somehow. He could still feel the burning at the back of his skull if he concentrated, but it stayed there, never touching his eyes.

He flexed his fingers into a fist and then released it slowly. His flesh felt as solid and strong as ever. Was that an illusion? Would he be able to crush the thing in his fist if he got hold? Or was he a wraith, insubstantial and unable to help Jean again? What if, in this strange state of non-reality, he simply didn't have the means to destroy anything?

If Charles, working deep in Jean's mind, were aware of the monster, he showed no sign.

Briefly, Scott considered making himself a target in hopes that would show the monster to Charles. But, if the tactic failed, he might lose his own chance to kill it. He watched the creature until warning fear tickled his spine, then leaned back against the glossy, dark infirmary wall, out of its view.

Logan prowled the infirmary room. Twice he'd asked the professor to explain what was going on. Twice he'd been told to be patient. Scott suspected another dismissal would cause Logan to extend those deadly claws in frustration.

"Just wait, Logan," Scott chided, grinding his fist against his palm. "Wait for the professor to give us direction. Wait."

_Trust. Charles has never truly failed me._ Then, he gave up and ran both hands over his face before crossing his arms and looking away from the scene before him. Forget Logan's impatience. Scott wasn't sure how much longer he could follow his own advice.

In the year since they lost Jean, he'd learned just how dangerous inactivity was. His mind drifted easily. Some paths took him to morbid places, others to joyful memories. But, every trail was dangerous. He lost himself for hours in the morass of pleasure and despair that filled his mind.

In the first months after she died, he'd tried keeping busy. But, he'd only managed to exhaust himself so that he fell into a sleep too deep and filled with violent dreams. In the end, he'd given in to the drifting because that form of agony didn't cause him to wake with both hands on his night visor preparing to blow the whole school to pieces.

Now, however, he needed to stay alert and focused. He was, apparently, the only one who could see the real threat. Charles, for all his mental prowess, remained oblivious.

Charles began explaining things to Logan, then. He talked about Jean having near limitless power. And fear tinged his every word.

"Charles is afraid of Jean?" Even the words sounded absurd. Scott understood the professor's had to be worried about what had happened up at Alkali Lake. After all, Logan had recovered Scott's bike. They knew he'd been there. They didn't know what happened to him. But, could anyone actually think Jean was would harm him? Apparently, Charles could.

"When she was a girl, I created a series of psychic barriers to isolate her powers from her conscious mind, and as a result, Jean developed a dual personality," The professor was saying.

Charles knew about Phoenix? Scott should have guessed, given the frequency with which he worked with Jean to improve her powers. Improve? From what Charles was now saying, he must have used those sessions to make sure Jean's powers remained permanently dampened. Scott's jaw clenched at that thought.

Logan was circling the examining table like a caged wolf. Again, Scott felt an unsettling kinship of purpose with the man. Logan's words echoed the restless anger his body showed. "She knew all this?"

"She knew, Logan, " Scott answered, though he knew he wouldn't be heard. He needed to hear the truth aloud, for himself. "She knew about Phoenix, at least."

So did Scott. Phoenix had introduced herself two weeks after Liberty Island, in the school's kitchen while the staff was on a break.

_One moment, Scott was standing with Jean as she folded slices of ham precisely over a neatly trimmed piece of bread. She smelled of exercise and sunshine. He teased her about the care she took in preparing her sandwich._

_Then she tilted her head, and someone else stared up at him from behind Jean's lowered lashes. The temperature in the room couldn't have increased faster if all the ovens turned on at once._

_"I would have thought you liked careful?" She stuck her finger in the mayonnaise and spread a thick layer over the meat. Several globs landed on the counter. Then she smeared the rest on his lips. "How about messy?"_

_"Not that messy." He reached for a napkin._

_She licked him clean instead. "How about that messy?"_

_The next moment they were sprawling on top of the counter, smashing bread and meat and mayonnaise under them. She tore his shirt, then raked him with her nails, bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. Right about then they heard the cooks coming down the corridor from their break._

_Before Scott could even think about stopping, she rushed him into the walk-in pantry. The door slammed shut on its own. Scott had never been ravished before, especially on the floor of the pantry with canned goods rattling off the shelves all around them. Climax accompanied a geyser of tomato sauce and canned pears._

_Phoenix didn't stay past the drenching, though. She didn't like to face the consequences of her actions. It was Jean, soaked red in sauce and embarrassment, who had to exit the pantry under his arm. Scott fixed the head cook with a 'don't-dare-say-anything' stare and managed not to chuckle as all three of the cook's chins dropped to her chest. He knew if he laughed he'd be a dead man._

_But, he'd expected Jean to get over the mortification eventually. Hell, the sex had been fun, hadn't it? She didn't get over it. The more Phoenix showed herself, the more Jean wanted to destroy her other self._

Maybe if he hadn't pushed her to accept rather than fight -- Scott shook the thought away. He knew where those mind games lead. Pain and endless despair.

"It's unclear how much she knew," the professor told Logan.

"So, she never went to you about destroying Phoenix?" Scott asked, even knowing he'd get no reply. He had told her Charles would never agree to kill part of her the way she wanted. Listening to Charles now, he realized he'd been wrong in that. Charles would have happily locked Phoenix away permanently. If he had, maybe Jean wouldn't have broken the dam and wouldn't have needed to go outside the jet -- and Scott would have killed her while under Stryker's control. "There never was a path that ends with us all alive, was there?"

Except there was -- this one. Jean was alive and breathing right in front of him. Wasn't she? She had a monster clinging to her no one else could see, but she was here with them, not drowned beneath a freezing, crushing lake. And, in some small part at least, Charles' machinations were responsible for that miracle.

"Far more critical is whether the woman in front of us is the Jean Grey we know, or The Phoenix, furiously struggling to be free," Charles concluded.

Jean. It had to be Jean. Or both. Scott concentrated on those moments on the rocky beach at Alkali Lake. Which woman had greeted him? He would swear it had been Jean. Her voice, her stance, the love in her eyes were all Jean. But, later, when she locked his power away, she may have been Phoenix. He couldn't be sure. He wouldn't forgive himself if it was only Phoenix who lived.

"What have you done to her?" If possible, Logan looked even more tense than he had before.

Scott found himself crossing the distance between them putting a hand Logan couldn't possibly feel on the man's shoulder. "She would have wanted Charles to control Phoenix."

Logan shrugged as if he sensed the weight on his shoulder, but he didn't turn around. He didn't hear Scott's words. Not that it mattered. Logan wouldn't have wanted to hear what Jean had to say about Phoenix. Scott wished he didn't have to remember it.

_"I hate her," Jean had finally said as she crawled beneath the covers of their bed. It was a few days before Logan returned, before Stryker and the disaster. She'd never voiced her hatred before, though Scott knew that's how she felt. He thought that was the greatest tragedy -- Jean was afraid of a whole part of herself, a part she should have embraced, enjoyed, and trained. _

_She coaxed him onto his back so she could rest her head on his chest in her 'I need to talk' position. He must have sighed a bit too loudly because he felt her stiffen. "You'd rather it was her here with you, wouldn't you?"_

_"No." He answered too quickly and was misinterpreted for it. Amazing how often a telepath could misread the man closest to her. Jean rolled away from him. He tried to entice her back and was rebuffed._

_"She wants to sleep with Logan when he comes back. Do you know that? She told me about it in detail while I was trying to grade papers this afternoon." Jean tucked her pillow stubbornly under her head. "She loves him, Scott. Only I love you."_

Even now, the declaration punched him harder than any fist. He pulled his hand away from Logan's shoulder. He still wanted to believe Jean only said that to hurt him, because she was angry and jealous herself. "It hurts, Jean. It still hurts. But, not as bad as the rest."

Logan's argument with Charles escalated. "Sometimes when you cage the beast, the beast gets angry."

"You have no idea." The fear in Charles voice nearly vibrated. "You have no idea of what she's capable."

Charles meant her power, but for Scott the statement carried other meanings. It wasn't telekinesis and telepathy that made Phoenix dangerous. It was her indifference to the cost of her actions. She told Jean about her love because she felt it, not caring that it would hurt someone else. Worse, he saw her face when she closed the jet's hatch on him at Alkali Lake.

_It wasn't Jean out there. Jean would have understood the risks and taken the escape that Kurt Wagner offered. But, Phoenix, reckless soul that she was, didn't think about death. And it was Phoenix closing the hatch on him, struggling with the jet, preparing to hold back the water just long enough for them to escape. He saw it all in her eyes -- she would prove love by dying because it was dramatic and romantic rather than necessary. Love for him, for Logan, it didn't matter. She chose wildly, as she always did. And she took Jean with her._

"It sounds to me like Jean had no choice at all," Logan shot at the professor, before storming out. He couldn't know how right he was. Jean had no choice, despite the professor's quietly earnest insistence after the disaster that choice made her death right.

The chill of that lie froze Scott to the core. He might have punched Charles if it would have done more than break his own hand. "You knew. You blocked her and broke her and then you sat there and told me she made a choice."

Something dark and cold took hold of him then. Scott could feel its claw reach out and grab him. His strength and will drained away. There had never been any hope Charles would find the monster. He wasn't looking for monsters. He thought he already found one. And he hadn't helped that day at Alkali Lake because he believed death was best for that beautiful monster called Phoenix who took Jean with her. "You killed her."

Scott retreated to the corner of the room again and put his hands over his face. He was sweating, shaking. Maybe that was the result of not eating all day, or maybe it was the guilt that still swamped him a year later. Maybe it was Charles's betrayal. Whatever it was, it defeated him. He couldn't fight the memories anymore.

"I killed you." No amount of logic or reason could burn that thought away. He hadn't been able to separate Jean and Phoenix in his mind -- he'd loved them both. And because he couldn't choose the woman who loved him back over the one that didn't, Jean had died. "Maybe Charles let you die, but I killed you."

* * *

Note: I realize that in the movie Jean closed the hatch on the Blackbird before turning enough for Scott to see her eyes, but I still liked the image. 


	3. Chapter 3

Note: Thanks again for the kind words on the story. It's great encouragement to keep going.

I realize this chapter is a bit thin on the Rogue storyline as well. I promise that she has a major major role here. But, explaining what's going on with Scott is taking a bit of time. So, please bear with me a little longer.

Telepathy here is shown with _italics and underline_. Regular thought is simply _italics_.

* * *

Chapter Three

Marie cracked the door of her room open. "Bobby?"

"Yeah, why are you hiding? You got another guy in there?" He laughed at his own teasing, but there was a tightness around his eyes.

"Sure. Little old vampire me is sucking the life out of them every chance I get and stacking them in the corner of my room." It didn't sound as funny spoken as it had in her head.

"Rogue."

She opened the door a bit more and leaned farther into the hallway. "What? Of course, I don't have a guy in here. God, Bobby."

"I'm still trying to figure out why you're avoiding me, is all."

_Kitty,_ she almost snapped. But, that wasn't true. Kitty was just a smoke-screen her mind liked to throw up so she wouldn't look at the ugly reality. She couldn't touch him, and whether that bothered him or not, being around him reminded her constantly of what she wanted most and couldn't -- probably couldn't ever -- have.

She couldn't tell him that, though. "It's just weird lately, Bobby. Cyclops is gone. Dr. Grey is back, maybe. The Professor blasts us all with some sort of terror mind bomb. And Logan is acting all intense and …"

"And Logan-like," Bobby finished. "I know a lot's happened, but that's no reason to act like I don't exist."

"You exist, Bobby. Believe me, I know you exist." She wanted to close the door again, curl back on her bed, and relive her fantasy one more time. But, she couldn't leave him hanging in front of her door. "You know. I should apologize for what I said to you the other night. I know you think about a lot more than one thing. You've never been anything but wonderful to me, and I'm being a bitch to you."

He ducked his head, half hiding a smile. How did he manage to make so simple a gesture sexy. "Yeah, well, I can take it."

She studied him closer. Maybe he could handle what she was carrying around with her. Maybe all she had to do was reach out, take hold of his hand, pull him inside, and really tell him what was going on.

"Bobby! You coming?" Kitty appeared at the end of the hall. "You're supposed to drive."

He looked up. "Right. Just a minute. I'm still asking Rogue."

"Asking me what?" She felt as if he'd frosted her. He wasn't here to reach out to her. It was just some group thing and he wanted her to tag along for who knew what reason.

"We're going to go rent some horror movies and have a scare-fest. We're getting burgers on the way back. I thought you might want to come."

"Horror movies?" That had to be Kitty's idea. "Don't we have enough scary real stuff going on here at the moment?"

"God, Rogue, it's just something to do." He scowled at her and then started down the hall. He paused half-way and turned before she got the door closed. "I'll get you something to eat and leave it in the kitchen. If you decide to come join us, you'll have dinner at least."

-----

The guilt was endless, a slow drowning in regret. And then, it was gone.

Scott realized he'd sunk to a fetal crouch with his back against the wall. His eyes burned, but not in the way that would hint his power had returned. He straightened his back until his skull rested against the cool wall behind him. For the first time, he hadn't had to fight his way free of despair. It had simply lifted off him.

He took a deep breath, felt his lungs fill with air. Antiseptic and pine warred in the room. He couldn't remember why he'd been crouching in agony. He'd been fighting memories, painful memories yes but nothing that should have crippled him. And then he'd lost himself. Or rather, he'd been torn away by something else, something dark and hateful.

He shook his head. The past year was a muddle. How long had it been since he felt this clearly himself? And why did he only come to that place now?

The soft whirr of Charles's chair distracted him from his thoughts. The professor was pulling away from the examining table and heading for the door. A moment later, Scott was alone with Jean, the beeping, chirping equipment, and the sound of his own harsh breathing.

He steadied himself before looking at the table where Jean lay. She still looked simply asleep. A shift to the right, a tilt of his head, however, and he could see the monster again. This time, it did not stare back or search for him. Its eyes had sunk deep in its skull. The hair-like limbs stretching out behind its body draped limply across the room, the fleshy tips piled in the corners or on equipment or disappeared into the walls. It was, Scott realized, asleep.

"It's been destroying me with grief," he whispered. "Why?"

This wasn't the time for questions. This was the moment to kill it. His joints protested as he stood, making him wonder how long he'd huddled on the floor. It could have been minutes, or hours. He lost sight of the monster as soon as he moved. He'd have to trust that his approach wouldn't wake it.

His boots made so little sound against the tile. He worried again about his strength. Cautiously, he crept along the side of the table, twisting his body in search of the angle that would let him find the creature again. In the end he had to rest his cheek against Jean's belly. All he could see was the dome of the thing's body above rising above her and the long beak arching over her.

The rise and fall of her breathing shifted his vision enough that the monster rocked in and out of sight. But, he was close enough now. He timed her breathing, easing his hand forward and upward only on her exhale, when he could see the thing.

_Scott. Don't._

He froze. Her breath never changed tempo. He felt each inhalation push against his cheek. "Jean?"

_Yes. Listen to me. It will kill you if you try to touch it._

"What will it do to you if I don't?"

_Nothing worse than it already has done. It's hurt me all it can._

He didn't believe that, but her psychic voice sounded brittle inside his mind, as if she were on the edge of tears. He didn't want to argue. "Then tell me what to do."

_Go. Get away from it. Save yourself._

"I mean how do I save you."

_You can't. I'm already dead._ The wail behind that thought was like a razor in his mind.

"You're not dead. Your telekinesis protected you. The professor said so. Come on, Jean, it's my turn to save you."

The wail ended on a warble of stark, humorless laughter. _Scott, dying for someone isn't like playing a board game. You don't get to take turns._

He didn't know what to say to that. His mind grabbled frantically for answers. It wasn't fair. He hadn't asked her to die for him. "You didn't die for me, Jean. It was Phoenix who died and she did it for someone else. It's still my turn." Stupid, but he had nothing else.

_You're wrong, love._ He received the mental image of her hand stroking his face. _We both chose, and it was for you._

"But, Storm found you. Logan carried you in here. The professor said you survived. He spent hours working on you. Even if I'm dead, some part of you isn't."

_You aren't dead, Scott._ Jean sounded absolutely certain.

"Then you can't talk to me if you are. Listen to me. You have to be alive, and if you are alive, there has to be a way to get this thing out of you."

_My body is alive._ Determination replaced despair in her voice now. _But, my soul is gone. The Phoenix half is anyway. The Eater of Souls has devoured her. It is her now. I'm only here because we were so separate. But--_ He felt her body shiver and the beep of the machines around her accelerated.

That could not be good. Scott felt certain she could only talk to him because the monster had been put into a stupor by the professor. If she woke it, they would both lose.

"Easy, Jean," he whispered, resting his hand against her lips. "Don't wake it."

_No, mustn't wake it._ Her voice calmed. _The professor pacified Phoenix, and with her, the Eater. Charles's blocks won't last, but they give me time to explain things to you_.

Explanations would be good. Knowledge was what he needed most right now. He forced himself to focus on that problem. "You're here because you and Phoenix were separate."

_Yes. Separate. The Eater doesn't understand compartmentalized minds and souls. It took her and left me. But--_ Another pause and he felt her calming herself. She sounded so sad. _You were right. She was me. Without her, I'm not really alive. I don't want to be alive._

"Don't think about that now." Maybe she was right and Phoenix was gone, devoured. But, as long as Jean was alive, there was hope. "Tell me about the monster." _Tell me enough to let me kill it._

_It's a parasite. It invades at the moment before death when the soul struggles to break free of the dying body, and it traps that soul. If it can, it heals the body and the person seems to live, miraculously sometimes, but it's not the person. It's the Eater._ He heard the strain the conversation was putting on her. They didn't have much time. _It's wholly evil. It's only pleasure is destruction. It's only purposes are pain and the need to make more of its kind._

He glanced around the room carefully, noting the thread-thin tendrils draped everywhere. Under Jean's mental direction, he saw clearly that the ripe clusters at each tip were egg sacks. This Eater was waiting for death to come close enough to plant its young -- hundreds of young.

"There has to be a way to kill it."

_Before it matured, maybe. Young it felt more vulnerable. But, it's past that now. Now, it just wants to find as many people, mutants with strong powers if possible, to kill._

Scott was suddenly very glad the school was out of session for the summer. "Jean, there has to be a way to destroy this thing. Think. How much do you know about it?"

_Its parent passed all the knowledge it needed with the seeding. I know because it knows. And the only way to destroy it is to kill me._

That wasn't an acceptable answer. "I can't."

_I know. I'm sorry. I didn't know any other way to save you from it on the beach._

Scott straightened then, looked down into her serene face. "What?"

_I saved you._ Her voice was beginning to fade, either from drugs the machines were pumping into her body or some residual effect of the hours of work the professor had done on her. _It used our link to torture you, and to call you. It wants you because you can destroy so much._

He thought about the power behind his eyes and what that could do to people, cities, if he didn't care who he hurt. So much destruction.

_But, it can't have you. I took you away from it._

"Jean, what did you do? What's happened to me."

_I used its power, combined with Phoenix's, to fold you. You see, it's folded into spaces we can't reach, but there are spaces it can't reach too. I folded you into those._ And then her voice faded to a whisper. _I love you._

"Hell, Jean, you can't leave me like this. I can't even tell anyone what you've told me. I can't move anything." His mouth was dry as sand, and he realized it wasn't just fear. If he wasn't dead he'd still need to eat and drink or he would die. He didn't know how to do either in this state. A person could go just three or four days without water. When he died, everything she'd just told him would die with him.

_Fold yourself back,_ she suggested softly. He felt her mind slipping into some dreamlike haze.

"I can't!"

That startled her mind awake once more. _You can't? Oh god, of course, how could you? I have to -- Scott, I can't. I can't fold you back without waking the Eater. If I wake it, it will kill you._

Her panic caused the monitors to spike again. "Don't, Jean. Don't wake it. I'll be fine. I'll figure it all out. Trust me."

_Trust you?_

"Yes."

The drowsy softness returned to her mind slowly. _I trust you. I love you._

"Jean?" He tried to pull her back. They'd shared a mindlink for as long as he could remember and he tried reaching through it. The connection felt so thin.

_It's been using this to torture you. I won't let it do that anymore. I was so selfish. I wanted to feel you close when I was so alone. But, I can't let it hurt you._

And then, her thoughts slipped out of his mind, not just into sleep but away. She'd severed their link completely. _Don't!_ he shouted. But, she was already gone.

He was left standing over her, his whole body trembling. He gave crushing the monster one more thought. She might be wrong. He might succeed. She might be right. He might kill her. Or himself. If he killed himself who would warn the rest of the school about the danger?

"New plan, Summers, come on."

He needed to tell someone. Get help to work on the problem. To do that, he had to get back to normal. Alright, how did he do that?

She'd folded him, whatever that meant. Apparently, there was some way to unfold. All right, he had to figure out how to do that first. Then he'd get help and they'd figure out how to kill the Eater of Souls before it could turn everyone around him into similar monsters. All without killing Jean in the process.

"Damn."


	4. Chapter 4

Note: Sorry this one is late. Real life has caught up with me big time this week, but things should be smoothing out and postings should go back to regular once a week after this.

Thanks again for the kind words and encouragements. They mean a lot and really do keep me motivated with this.

* * *

Chapter Four

Jean had wanted to save him. Scott believed that with his whole being. But, what she'd managed was to strand him outside normal space with very few options for continuing the quest for survival, and even less chance of solving the problems she'd handed him.

He glanced around the infirmary. Everything looked quiet. Jean slept. The machines surrounding her kept their vigilant cadence. But, the calm was illusion. The Eater of Souls rested here, ready to kill everyone Scott knew and loved. And, he couldn't even open the damn infirmary door.

"All right, I'm folded. Folded how?" The only interpretation that made any scientific sense was that Jean had somehow bent him into some extra spatial dimension. Some theories of the universe held that there were as many as nine spatial dimensions. Nine. Three sets of three. Three three-dimensional worlds layered on top of one another. Thinking of them as layers really helped him imagine the situation. Reality existed in one layer. The Eater resided in another. Jean had folded him into the last one. They all touched in some way, maybe shared one spatial dimension, but didn't totally intersect.

That at least made some sense. The Eater wasn't on Scott's layer, but he could see it if he turned the right way. So --

Maybe the door was the same. If he changed his perspective it might… what? He ducked and shifted until the door seemed to come apart at the seams. What, in the real world was solid, in his reality became a series of oddly shaped metal plates with gaps between. He managed to find a path wide enough to fit through. It took some contortion and more than a few old spelunking skills, but he eventually found himself in the hall outside the infirmary.

Scott allowed himself to enjoy the success for a moment. Conquering the door meant one hurdle down. He still had to figure out how to destroy the Eater of Souls before it began killing everyone in sight -- maybe figure out how to turn his power back on, maybe discover a way to communicate with the other members of the team. But, being able to get through doors was a start.

He avoided the elevator, no guarantee he could push enough weight against the buttons to register a floor request. Instead, he took the long route up the stairs and into the main corridor of the mansion. The hallway was silent, but Scott heard the television in the main room blaring horror music. A female squeal followed by male laughter told him the kids were holding a party of some sort in there.

He took a step toward the room and his foot seemed to crash down onto the tile as if it suddenly weighed a ton. His head spun and he experienced the strangest falling sensation. Scott shook his head. He backed up.

And nearly ran into Rogue.

They both startled. Rogue nearly dropped the huge plastic cup she was carrying, and Scott instinctively caught it before the drink could spill. He felt his fingers bend the plastic slightly, the liquid inside shift under the pressure. He clung to the cup, marveling that something at last felt natural.

He stared at his hand, then at the young woman before him. Rogue still clutched a fast food bag in her other hand, and her fingers around the paper had gone white with tension. Her eyes had rounded in surprise, perhaps fear. She gasped softly. He watched her mouth close over the sound. Her lips pinched as she swallowed hard.

She didn't see him, that was clear in the way her eyes darted back and forth, searching. Still, she was aware of the hold he had on her drink. She let go of the cup, took a step backward, and then a second.

"Rogue. It's okay."

"Are you haunting me?" Her soft accent gentled the accusation. "Why? Isn't there somebody you know better, and maybe like less?"

Her question, or maybe it was simple relief, made him laugh. "Like Logan maybe?"

Apparently, she couldn't catch either the joke or the lightness of his tone, because she only skittered farther away.

"Look, I'm not in the best place right now. I can't tell if you're real or a ghost or just all in my head. So, if you are real, you'd best go talk to the professor or someone who can do the psychic stuff because I can't really help." Her gaze fixed on the cup in his hand. "But, if you really want to keep my lemonade, I don't mind."

Her mention of the drink made his parched throat scratch. He almost paused to take a long draw from the straw sticking out of the lid. But, he had to prioritize here. Why could Rogue sense him when even Charles couldn't? "I can't talk to Professor Xavier. He can't see or hear me. Rogue, this is important."

He took a step closer and then several more until he was nearly on top of her, and the last step was like plunging down an unexpected stair. He nearly lost his balance. Rogue turned and ran down the hall as fast as she could.

The feeling of falling, of weight, left with her. Scott really had no choice but to follow her.

-----

Marie didn't believe in ghosts. So that could not have been Cyclops haunting her in the hall. Sure, her lemonade cup had sort of stuck in the air there and then followed her around a bit. And she'd heard a weird mumbling that sounded a lot like Cyclops voice. She knew that voice. She'd heard it shouting in her ear often enough in the early days of her X-men training, before he'd gone all strange and sad over Jean.

But, whatever she thought she heard and saw, it hadn't been a ghost. Because she didn't believe in ghosts. Some new students might have been playing a prank. There were plenty of people whose powers she didn't know well.

Marie took a deep breath. There, she'd found a rational explanation that didn't require her to be going crazy, hearing voices and hallucinating floating lemonade.

So, why was she still sitting in this corner of the kitchen floor, well away from the broad, black expanse of window that dominated the far wall, clutching her bag of chilling fast food to her chest as if they were cholesterol-laden shield? She should do exactly what she intended before meeting the apparition -- join Bobby and the others for the horror movies and eat her dinner with friends. Maybe they could even tell her who was playing tricks in the hallway.

She managed to stand and push herself over to a seat at the wide table, but she couldn't force herself all the way to the door. She just couldn't. Not right now. She knew whatever was out there wasn't a ghost. Still, she didn't want to meet it again. Slowly, she pulled fries and a burger out of the bag.

Bobby had gotten her mayo on the burger again. It was Kitty that liked mayo. Marie groaned and pushed the sandwich away. She really couldn't eat it when it had white slime on it. And she didn't have a drink anymore. She picked at the fries in growing disgust. "I can't get anything right."

Now she was being not only silly, but an unreasonable bitch as well. The sandwich was just a mistake, and the drink was her fault for being so terrified of a childish prank. The fries tasted like sand in her mouth. "Too much salt too," she grumbled.

A fry floated lazily into the air in front of her face. It turned side to side. And then it vanished. Marie froze. The air beside her grew heavy, as if something thick and weighty had just leaned toward her from the end of the table. She could not make herself move, she was so scared.

"You don't want the food? I'm starving."

She had to strain to hear the words, but they were real, unmistakable. And she still knew the voice.

"You want it, take it," she managed, though she thought she sounded like she was squeaking. She tried to remember it was just a prank. Some smart-aleck new kids teasing. She tried to picture them crouched behind the kitchen door, snickering at her. Some X-man she was making, terrified of some brat's game.

"Thank you." The voice was warm with genuine gratitude. The hamburger slid to the very corner of the table, and the bag of fries followed. Then they slowly separated like wind-blown sand and vanished.

Marie stared. She didn't know anyone with a power that worked quite that way. She wondered, too, where some brat-prankster had learned to imitate that particular voice so well.

What if this wasn't a prank? What if it really was Cyclops' ghost? The rumor was that he'd died trying to rescue Dr. Gray before Logan and Storm managed to get to the lake. That thought made her sad. It seemed cruel for him to grieve so long, and then die right before his love returned from the dead. Only some lame old playwright like Shakespeare could come up with a story that unpleasant.

"Sorry the food's cold," she whispered. It seemed impolite to not offer some dinner conversation.

-----

Scott forced himself to chew the hamburger slowly as he thought this new twist in his situation. Whenever he stepped within a few feet of Rogue, he felt that strange falling sensation, and could begin to affect normal matter. If he moved away, he experienced an equally strange pull upward, and whatever he happened to be holding folded with him back into the unnatural dimensions he now inhabited.

He'd tested his theory by watching her face as he accepted her offer of food. As he'd drawn the hamburger and fries toward him, her gaze followed. He moved to the far side of the table, still dragging the food. Then, her eyes widened and he knew the items had vanished from her sight.

It was at that moment that the smell of food nearly overwhelmed him and he'd shoved half the burger into his mouth in one bite. Never had a slab of greasy, sauce-smeared mystery meat in a stale bun tasted so good. He hadn't realized he was starving until that instant.

_Think_, Scott reminded himself as he chewed. _Figure this out. It's important._

He had to assume some aspect of Rogue's life-absorbing power was causing him to partly unfold when he got close enough to her. Normally, Rogue had to touch someone to absorb their life or powers, but she managed to affect his folded state from about four feet away. At that distance, he first felt like he was falling. He could only grab things when he was closer than two feet, however. And she could only hear his voice if he leaned in close. Very close.

What would happen if he actually touched her? He didn't dare test that yet.

"Sorry the food's cold," she whispered. He'd never paid much attention to how honey-smooth her voice was, how very pleasant it was to listen to her. But, he'd always taken the fact of people conversing with him for granted. Perhaps it was simply relief that she acknowledged his existence that shivered his skin when she spoke, and not the silky texture of her voice.

_More tests._ Scott pushed the hamburger wrapper and fries bag away from him. He felt her power pull on his arm, almost painfully. And then he withdrew, leaving the debris behind. Rogue gave a little start, telling him the papers had reappeared in her vision.

Good, he could release things into reality as well as fold them away. To be sure, he repeated the process with the now empty lemonade cup.

"You still thirsty?" she asked quickly. "I don't have any more lemonade, but I could fill it with water?"

"Water would be…" he remembered that she couldn't hear him at this distance and stepped around the corner of the table again. He leaned toward her -- close, very close -- but was careful not to touch her.

He could see the subtly metallic reflection in the white strands of her hair. A gold hoop glittered in her earlobe. And, from beneath her jaw a whiff of vanilla perfume drifted to him. More small details about a young woman he'd never bothered to really notice or know. He should have tried to know her better, he thought, especially since he was soon going to have to ask her to risk her life for him.

"Water would be very nice," he told her.

Rogue leapt up, snatching the cup from the table. She raced to the sink, leaving his body with that falling-elevator sensation he now associated with folding. His head went dizzy with it. He almost followed her just to recover the sense of being real she gave him.

She returned quickly enough, however, cup in hand. He took it and drained the water. His body was still parched, apparently. He pushed the cup away again, and this time she left it next to the discarded hamburger wrapper and fries bag.

"So, why can't I see you?" Rogue stared at the spot where he sat intently, proving she knew where he was even if he remained invisible to her. "I can see the cup and the wrappings now, but not you."

"I think I'm not here enough for you to see me," he answered against her ear. "I think I'd need to actually touch you to make that happen."

"You know that's dangerous." And she shivered. Her breath accelerated. This close he could feel warmth rise across her cheek.

He didn't want her to be afraid. "I know. I'm not going to do it, not now."

"Oh?" The sound was low and quiet. "Why not? You worried I'll hurt you even though you're… whatever it is you are?"

"Folded," he answered automatically. How bizarre was it that he was becoming comfortable with the idea? "I'm not afraid of you, Rogue. But, I'm not sure whether touching you will bring me back to regular space, or if I'll only wind up folding you into this dead existence with me."

She reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, the movement so quick Scott had to pull back in order to avoid her gloved fingers bumping his nose. "That doesn't sound very good."

"Your touch might well be my salvation," he told her. "I don't want to extinguish that hope with haste."

-----

Marie knew the moment he moved away because the air around her lost its unnatural density. For several moments she just sat, eyes closed, and breathed. 'Your touch … my salvation.' The words had made her mouth go dry. Not pain, not coma, not death. Salvation. "I'll save you," she whispered into the empty air. "I promise."


	5. Chapter 5

Note: As before, when a scene in Shadow Man coincides with a scene from The Last Stand, some or all of the dialogue has been taken directly from the movie.

I'm delighted that readers are enjoying my story. A reader's pleasure is the best 'payment' an author can recieve. Thank all of you who have taken the time to comment, and/or to put Shadow Man on your alerts and favorites lists. It means a lot.

* * *

Chapter Five

"Rogue? What are you doing sitting here alone in the kitchen?" Bobby's voice shattered the quiet. Marie opened her eyes and looked around at the faces of her friends. An entire troop of students and trainees had pushed into the kitchen -- nearly a dozen teenaged boys, plus Kitty.

"You had a strange expression on your face just now," Kitty added. "See a ghost?"

"Sort of." Marie smiled as her gaze landed on the crumpled paper wrappings. It hadn't been illusion or dream. The sense of wonder still buoyed her. Her power could save someone. It didn't only cause hurt. "Cyclops is alive. He was here. He talked to me and ate my dinner."

Marie watched as their expressions shifted from surprise, through confusion, to a sort of restrained excitement. "So where is he?" "I didn't see him in the hall?" "Why'd he eat your dinner?" The questions came in a wave.

"I don't know where he is. He could still be right here, or he could have left the kitchen. He's sort of invisible, you see." Marie felt her own excitement ebb as she realized they were now staring at her with a kind of quiet disgust. She let her voice trail to a whisper. "And I guess he ate my dinner because he was hungry."

An uncomfortable silence stretched, and then was broken by Kitty. "We thought you were serious. God, Rogue. Somebody dying isn't a joke you know."

"I'm not lying," Marie protested, but Kitty turned and stalked out of the room.

"I'm not lying," she repeated stubbornly to the flock of boys now turning to watch Kitty's exit. "He really was here, talking to me."

"I believe you," Bobby said, but Marie could see the lie in his eyes. He thought she was making it up to be funny, like Kitty accused, or worse that she was making it up to herself because she was crazy.

She suddenly felt very tired and very lost and the beauty of the declaration 'you are my salvation' tarnished under disbelieving stares.

"Go away, Bobby," she told him. "All of you, just go away."

-----

Scott wasn't sure what all he was looking for when he went to Charles' office after leaving Rogue. He hoped, an admittedly meager hope, that Rogue had unfolded him enough for Charles to detect his presence. Before he asked Rogue to try completely unfolding him, he wanted the professor's opinion on the matter. Charles had always been his guide in difficult decisions.

But, the professor had retired early. The office was dark and empty and silent, all its answers locked away for the night. Still, Scott stayed, running fingers over the volumes that crowed the bookshelves and staring out the windows into the dark. The books refused to budge when he pushed at their spines. The darkness outside blinded more than his visor ever had. The world he'd inhabited for hours now, so strangely unyielding, was a foreign place, even in this room he knew so well. His only connection to reality was a young woman he barely knew, whom he'd barely convinced of his existence.

He thought about Rogue and how he must have frightened her. The fear had been unavoidable. Was putting her at further risk equally unavoidable? She was young. She had an entire life of her own to live. Did he have a right to ask her to risk that for him, when she barely knew him? If it meant saving the rest of the school from the Eater of Souls, he did. Still, it was a lot to ask.

He finally settled by the window. The grounds outside were invisible in the darkness and the window itself seemed almost unreal. It took him a moment to realize that it was his lack of a reflection in the glass that made it seem so. No reflection -- another effect of the folding.

He was trapped between death and life. That thought continued to trouble Scott as he tried to work though all the tough questions on his own. During those silent hours he realized he was searching for more than advice. He needed to recover the man he respected more than anyone in the world. The Charles Xavier he'd encountered in the infirmary earlier was not that man. The Charles he admired wasn't fearful and manipulating. He didn't pretend to teach while locking the truth away in an unsuspecting mind.

"What changed you?" he whispered. "What made you do the things did to Jean? And if you didn't do those things, what made you lie to Logan about them?"

Instinctively, he waited for despair to curl around him. For so long, every time he asked himself hard, painful question a darkness that had nothing to do with night enveloped him. But, tonight the despair didn't come. The Eater of Souls no longer had access to his mind now that Jean had severed their mental link. There would be no more oblivion like the one he'd endured for the past year. Yet, in its place hung a stark loneliness.

Jean's presence in his mind had been one of the constants of his life. Even after she died in the lake, he'd heard her. He'd thought it was her soul crying out to him. It had been the Eater torturing him, of course, but the touch had not been all pain. It was at least a continuing connection. Now, he had nothing -- not the touch of the woman he'd always loved, nor the wisdom of the mentor he'd always relied on.

His friends didn't even know he stood beside them. More than ever, he needed Charles, the Charles he knew. He needed the world around him to revert from stark and strange to the one he'd always known.

But, when morning came, the room -- this cloister of leather and polished wood, of books and ideas -- remained unyielding, alien. And Scott feared the Charles he needed was gone forever. Or had never existed at all.

-----

The school was always strangely quiet in summer, but Marie thought this summer seemed quieter than most. Unlike previous years, when most of the students were runaways, the majority of the new kids had homes and families to spend their summers with. Only the X-men trainees, and a few year-round students, remained for the months of June, July, and August.

And since the announcement of the cure, every one of those people spent his or her days crowded around the recreation room television watching news. Today the stories centered on the opening of the first cure clinics. The reporter was broadcasting from Alcatraz Island and the line of people gathering before the shining white fortress that had once been a prison stretched for miles.

"Losers," one of the younger boys shouted at the screen.

"Who'd want their stupid cure?" a girl with blue hair snapped.

"Rogue wants the cure," another girl announced. "I heard her say so to Ms. Munroe."

Marie had been leaning against the wall at the back of the room, in a safe corner where she wouldn't bump anyone accidentally. Now, all eyes focused on her. She didn't need telepathy to know what they were thinking. She was going to be an X-man, something even the smallest of them dreamed about in some corner of their brains. How could she give that up to be a common human?

_Do I want it?_ Not two days ago she'd all but told Storm yes. But, what she wanted was changing, or perhaps it was her perception of what she wanted that was changing. She wanted to be able to touch people, certainly. More than that, though, she wanted to be able to use her power to improve the world rather than just cause hurt. She wanted to be something better than the girl who killed with a touch.

"Rogue doesn't want the cure," Bobby defended. "None of us do."

"None of them should." The blue-haired girl pointed at the TV screen and the long line of mutants outside the cure center.

Marie pushed away from the wall and moved into the crowd. The kids standing nearest to her backed away. They didn't want to touch her, and she couldn't blame them. "Some of those people probably have good reasons for wanting that cure. You can't speak for people when you don't even know what their lives are like. Imagine yourself in their shoes, maybe rejected by everyone, alone and unloved. How can you blame them for wanting to be normal?"

"We are normal," Kitty snapped. "We're normal mutants."

"Of course you'd miss the point," Marie grumbled. "You aren't rejected because of your power. It doesn't make your life unbearable."

"Maybe people don't reject you because of your power, Rogue," Kitty was still wearing the scowl from last night. "Maybe it's because you make cruel jokes about important things like friends who are missing and probably dead."

"I was not making a joke!" Marie did not want to defend her version of last night's events in front of all the students. It was private and important, and her friends had already stomped on her for it once. All she really wanted was for Kitty to shut up about the whole thing. "If you want to talk games and jokes, let's talk about people who do everything they can to steal another girl's boyfriend and then play all innocent about it."

Kitty's mouth gaped. Her face reddened. "I never --"

"I have as much reason to accuse you of stealing guys as you do to say I'm lying about Cy-- important things."

Kitty's eyes went wide with horror. In that moment, Marie saw the truth. Kitty did want Bobby, she really, deeply did. Her feelings were scrawled across her bright red face in an expression so open even the youngest in the room probably read it. And Marie hated the fact she'd forced Kitty to reveal that secret. All she'd wanted to do was make the girl shut up about last night. She hadn't meant to expose her to equally painful ridicule. For someone who didn't want to hurt others, she was sure doing a great job of wounding everyone around her.

"Kitty, I was just angry."

"Right." The word came out small and weak.

Bobby scowled. He might have said something, but at that moment a shout from the television reporter turned all eyes back to the screen. The camera panned skyward to catch a flash of white against the blue. A man with wings had just burst from the upper stories of the building to soar away from the island.

"See," the blue-haired girl shouted. "They are forcing people. That one escaped."

"Be pretty cool to have wings," said a boy with twin horns on his forehead. "No one would get rid of wings."

_No,_ Marie thought, _wings would never hurt anyone._ She slipped out of the room before she did any more damage.

-----

Summer was supposed to be a quiet time. But, this year Ororo experienced everything but peace. Jean was back from the dead. Scott was missing, presumed dead. The students were in shock and needed guidance about this obscene 'cure'. And the professor wanted Ororo to take Scott's place as his successor.

That last troubled her more than the rest. The idea of running the school excited her, but the team was another matter entirely. Ororo knew herself well. She was too passionate, too hotheaded, to be a military commander. And, as a result, she overcompensated by not being aggressive enough in the field. Logan had been right in that last Danger Room training session. The recruits needed to learn to do more than just run away. They needed to learn how to stand, even if standing meant losing.

Ororo wasn't sure she understood that lesson well enough to teach it to anyone else. She wanted to win, not merely die trying. She was no longer sure that was possible.

The situation with Rogue, therefore, was as much an excuse to talk to Charles as anything. Not that the problem wasn't serious and real. It was. The girl had been on edge since she arrived, not surprising considering the things she went through. Rogue had friends, but her power kept her from getting too close. In Ororo's opinion, Rogue was at real risk from this false cure. And worse, according to her friends, she was hallucinating now.

"Professor, I really need to talk," she announced, entering his office without knocking.

"Of course, Ororo, I felt your distress all the way down the hall." The tone was measured and calm, familiar Charles. Only the tremble at the end told her something was deeply wrong.

Charles sat behind his desk, head slumped against his chest. It was nine in the morning and his coffee cup sat untouched on a corner of the desk, without even a coaster to keep it from marking the polish. Ororo didn't have Logan's senses, but she was pretty sure the professor had been crying.

"Are you all right?"

"Fine," he said, apparently not caring that she could see through the lie. "You are concerned about Rogue."

Ororo nodded, deciding to avoid the more difficult one for the planned discussion. "She's seeing things. According to Bobby and a few of the others she claimed to see Scott in the kitchen last night. I wasn't sure if that was possible, or--"

"It's not possible." The response was short, sharp, lacking even a moment's consideration of all the possible explanations.

"So, you don't think he could still be here in spirit, trying to communicate with us? We've encountered so many strange things in the world, Charles, surely we need to entertain the possibility that a ghost is real."

"It's not Scott." Charles wheeled away from the desk and approached her.

"You know Scott's dead? You know Jean killed him?" Was that the cause of this odd behavior? Was Charles grieving? He loved all of his students, but Scott had always been special to him, a son more than a student. This loss had to hurt worse than most.

"She didn't kill him, Ororo. She obliterated him." The venom in the professor's tone shocked her. No amount of grief could explain the hatred coming from the man. "Death I could accept. I don't know that I believe in Heaven, but I've felt souls pass from flesh before and know there is a continuation. But, what Jean did to Scott -- Ororo, he disappeared from existence altogether. Body and soul. There's nothing left."

"Goddess," Ororo whispered. But, she didn't believe it. Not for a moment. Jean loved Scott. "Why would she do that?"

"Evil," Charles growled the word, a strange sound from a voice that was always so rational. And then a sob cracked through the hatred. Charles put his head in his hands. "I wanted to save them all, Ororo. I was so arrogant I thought I could save her too. But, now that she is here, all I feel when I am next to her is depthless evil. Dangerous, dangerous evil."

Ororo knelt next to his chair and rested her hand on his shoulder. Whatever grief he felt, it was deluding him. Souls did not disintegrate. They were strong and immortal. Charles had to be wrong this time. "We're all dangerous professor."

"Not like Jean. I should have done something. I should have stopped her before it came to this."

-----

The sight of the professor crying chilled Scott. He knew that anger and pain. He'd felt the same pain when the Eater of Souls tortured him with Jean's death. The monster had forged some link with Charles and now tortured him, in the same fashion, with Scott's own supposed death.

In the throes of such despair Charles could not be completely sane. The situation was worse than Scott had realized.

And then it got worse.

Charles suddenly sat straighter in his chair. His face contorted first in surprise, then confusion, then anger.

"It's Jean," he announced. "She's attacked Logan and escaped the infirmary."

-----

Bobby caught Marie in the hallway outside the recreation room. "Rogue, wait. I'm sorry, Kitty brought up last night in front of everyone but you have to understand. She's been here longer than the rest of us. She's closer to all the X-men than you or I. She's feeling all this upheaval more than most."

She sighed. "I know, Bobby. And I'm sorry I embarrassed her in return."

"I think she was mad more than embarrassed."

Oh god, he didn't even know how Kitty felt. Or maybe he didn't care. Or maybe he didn't want to admit the truth to her -- that he would rather be with someone who he could touch. Marie shivered with frustration. Why was everything so complicated and full of questions? Why couldn't anything be simple and easy? Why couldn't she just be sure whether Cyclops was real and need her help, or a figment of her imagination? Why couldn't Bobby just love her, or Kitty, and Kitty just go back to being Marie's friend rather than a competitor? Why couldn't she control her powers or decide to take the cure?

_Why can't I just be what I want to be?_

She stared at Bobby. He was handsome and earnest and she adored his youthful nobility. But, did she love him? Was he what she wanted? Or, was the first step in becoming the person she wanted to be the decision to let him go to someone who did?

"I don't care if she's mad or embarrassed or just being a raving bitch, Bobby. I don't. I just--"

Professor Xavier's voice rang so loudly in all their heads that it silenced everything else. _Get to your rooms, children. Now! And stay there._

-----

Scott arrived downstairs moments after Ororo and Charles. He saw the infirmary door shattered in the hall, but didn't have time to speculate on what that could mean. He followed the others into the infirmary where Logan lay sprawled on the floor. Logan startled and called Jean's name as Ororo helped him up.

_What happened here?_ The chaos of the scene sent a shiver up Scott's spine. It would be a lot harder to prove Jean needed help now that she'd attacked a team member directly. Charles wheeled into the room and demanded Logan tell him what he'd done, as if Logan would have hurt Jean. No, Scott reminded himself. Charles fear wasn't for Jean, but of her.

"I think she killed Scott," Logan said. Scott was getting particularly tired of that misinterpretation of events.

"She didn't kill me, she was trying to save me." He wondered why he even bothered talking since they couldn't hear. He supposed it was to remind himself he was still real.

Ororo protested the impossibility, but Scott watched Charles. The professor closed his eyes, clearly searching with his mind. "She's left the mansion, but she's trying to block my thoughts…."

Scott didn't need the professor to tell him Jean had left. If she were in control of herself again -- and he prayed she was -- she would be trying to get the Eater of Souls as far away from those she loved as she could. Even Phoenix, if she were in control, might be doing the same. If the Eater had woken, however, Scott had no idea what it might be doing or plotting. He only knew he had to stop the disaster that seemed to be rushing down on them all too quickly.

"It may be too late," Charles told the others. Then, he added. "We have to find her. I wish we had Cerebro repaired. Perhaps with its assistance I could regain control."

"What can we do?" That was Ororo, ever ready.

"Get the jet prepared, " Charles said. "Logan, get yourself together. You and Ororo will accompany me when we go after Jean. Be ready in half an hour. I'm going to do my best to find out where she's gone."

Scott stepped out of the way as Charles wheeled past him toward the elevator. Half an hour? Scott's own planning time had just collapsed to none. He couldn't let them go after Jean without knowing the truth. He had to warn them before they left. There was only one way he could do that.


	6. Chapter 6

Note: Standard disclaimers still apply. I don't own any of this; I just enjoy playing.

I'm delighted people are enjoying the story. Hopefully, the upcoming events won't disappoint. For me, the story is starting to get to be really fun now.

* * *

Chapter Six

Marie lay on her belly in bed, flipping through a celebrity magazine Theresa had loaned her. She couldn't muster a lot of interest in the protests of an exceptionally exotic and green-eyed actress who was refused work on the pretext she might be a mutant. "Plight' seemed an awfully strong word for the woman's situation. "Stick to 'how to become skeletally thin in ten days by eating watermelon', and stop trying to be relevant," she muttered at the glossy pages.

At least the pictures were pretty -- beautiful people in beautiful clothes visiting beautiful places. The magazine presented a world it was safe to envy since you were unlikely to meet anyone who actually lived in it. Things got a lot more complicated when what you envied lived right next door.

Marie sighed and rolled over onto her back. Now that she'd had time to reflect more, she realized envy was the root of much that troubled her. She envied people their ability to control their powers. She envied their ability to touch. Even Bobby was a desperate grab to have a balm for that envy -- if she had a boyfriend she wouldn't need to envy every girl who did.

Looking at it all in that light, she had lousy reasons for trying to keep him when Kitty could offer him so much more. As soon as the professor released them from their rooms she would find Kitty and make peace.

The decision felt right, but hollow. "I'll be alone again," she whispered, and she flipped past more pages of happy, beautiful people together. After a few moments, however, she tossed the magazine away and rolled onto her back. What difference did alone make? She'd always be alone in every real sense.

Marie rested her hands on either side of her face. The touch of skin to skin still comforted in its pathetic, lonely way. She didn't need to be beautiful, or to have fancy clothes, or to go to fancy parties like the people in Theresa's magazine. She didn't need an illusionary boyfriend to assuage her envy. She no longer even certain the cure could give her what she needed.

She'd thought all she needed was control of her powers. But, she really needed a way to make the powers matter. She'd thought all she needed were friends and someone to love. But, that wasn't right either. Her touch no longer comforted and she let her fingers slid down her cheeks, away from her face. What she needed… all she needed… all she wanted…

"Rogue?" The sudden whisper, so close to her ear, startled Marie. She nearly jumped off the bed, though she knew the tense, desperate voice.

"My god, how did you get in here?" She'd locked her door. She knew she would have heard if he'd opened it. Only now, after he'd spoken, did she notice the heavy feeling in the air to her right that she associated with Cyclops' presence.

"I can walk through the door when I'm like this. I'll explain another time. Right now, there isn't time." His voice had an edge of panic to it she'd never heard before -- panic he was clearly fighting hard to control. "I need to ask you to take a huge risk."

"What risk?" Marie knew she would do it, whatever it was. He wouldn't be asking with that desperation in his voice if it weren't important. The thickened air she'd come to associate with his presence settled close to her on the edge of the bed.

"I need …" He stumbled a bit and she felt his presence pull away, as if he were uncertain how to explain, or perhaps if he should at all. She had to strain to make out his next words. "I need you to let me touch you. I think you will be able to bring me back into reality."

"I won't hurt you," she blurted. Where had that come from? She always hurt when she touched, and yet, she was certain he would be fine. She nodded, and with more conviction repeated, "I won't."

"But, I might hurt you." Still, he moved closer. She felt the air around her press against her skin.

"You won't." It was another certainty spoken without thinking. She liked the sense of control this conviction brought. Marie's body started to tingle as she knelt right next to where she thought he must be sitting.

"That's very brave, but you need to understand what you are risking. If, instead of you unfolding me into reality, I fold you into this space where I am, we'll both die. There's no other escape from here."

The panic had left his voice, replaced by a firm, controlled calm. It was that calm, coupled with her own belief that they could not hurt each other in this that made her nod. "I understand. I want you to do it."

"Be sure, Rogue. If this goes badly there won't be any coming back, for either of us." Despite the grim words he seemed relieved.

"I understand," she insisted, her accent thick even to her own ears. Nervousness fluttered her stomach, but she wanted the risk. The danger itself was important. It made her choice weighty, like the air he inhabited.

And then it came, the warmth of touch. He put a hand on each side of her face, enclosing her in that warmth.

Marie closed her eyes. Male hands felt nothing like her own. Hers were slender, sleek as silk. His were harder, larger. Rough thumbs burnished the corners of her mouth -- calluses from hours retooling his bike and the cars.

She rested her own hands on his upper arms. The weightiness around her lessened as the feel of him became solid and real. Her own fingers tightened around leather. She traced the thick seams of the jacket he wore down his arms. The cuffs were turned back. Her hands found skin at his wrist, tight skin and stiff, male hairs. She pressed her palms against his hands until she felt each tendon, each thick bone. Her fingertips skimmed his short nails.

She drew in a deep breath, searching for his scent, but still only caught her own. Still, this felt so much more real than before.

"Rogue? Can you see me?" His voice sounded strained. Each word came out measured, edged.

"No," she answered truthfully. She could never see, only touch. That was the rule. The illusion would break if she looked. But, this felt so real. He sounded so real. Maybe she could risk--

"Could you try opening your eyes before answering?"

"Oh! Right!" God, she'd drifted off into her touching fantasy there. Her cheeks grew so hot it was a wonder he wasn't scorched. "I'm sorry."

When she opened her eyes she stared into his familiar face -- well familiar save for one thing. He was wearing neither glasses nor visor.

"Can you see me?" he prompted again. He didn't look angry, or embarrassed. He was a bit messier than usual. His hair was tangled, his clothing rumpled, and his beard was growing in. Yet, the lost look she'd come to associate with Cyclops' handsome face had vanished. In its place was a look so determined and desperate, she couldn't turn away.

Suddenly, she couldn't think of how to answer. Yes, she could see him, but not as she'd ever expected to. What fell out of her mouth was, "Your eyes are really blue."

She missed the feel of his hands the moment he removed them from her face. "The eyes are a complicated story, and I don't have time for complicated stories right now. Jean left. I have to stop them from hurting her. Or, from it --" He shook his head. "No time."

The urgency Marie sensed in his voice when he first arrived surfaced in his expression. His mouth tightened and his brow creased. At the words, 'Jean left' his tension peaked, as if the thought alone stabbed. She'd always known he loved the doctor, just never saw it etched so sharply on his face.

Love fueled the determination in his eyes. She didn't need him to explain that he was going to save Jean, or die trying. He didn't need to tell her why that was true. She understood from that single look.

What must it be like to have someone love you like that … to deserve it?

He stood. "I have to go."

Marie nodded. And then he was gone. But, she understood why he hurried. It was love. She understood finally, what she truly wanted.

-----

"I don't know who you are," Logan said. His claws erupted as he turned to face Scott. "But you've made three fatal errors."

_Okay, this is going to be bad._ Scott edged sideways in the narrow corridor that lead to the Blackbird's hanger as the other man stalked him.

After leaving Rogue's room, Scott had raced back to the lower levels. He'd chosen to talk to Logan rather than Ororo or the professor. Logan, whether he liked Scott or not, at least cared enough about Jean to listen. That had been a serious miscalculation. Logan wasn't in a listening mood.

There was little maneuvering room in the corridor, and Logan had already captured most of it given the reach of his fully extended claws. The stark, cold overhead light glinted blue on each blade.

"One, Summers can't show his eyes. Two, you don't smell like him. In fact, you don't smell alive at all."

Logan took a swing and Scott managed to duck a blow that, if it had connected, would have sliced his skull like a loaf of bread. Scott countered with a punch to Logan's gut, the only place he could strike without breaking his hand, and winced. He might as well have punched concrete.

_I'm folding again_, he realized. Rogue's touch had given him only a temporary sojourn in reality.

"Add a fourth mistake. Scott don't punch like a little girl."

"Logan, listen to me. The professor is wrong." Another swipe of those deadly claws forced Scott to dodge right. Pain seared his ribs anyway. He hadn't been quite fast enough that time. "I have to tell you about Jean."

"I know about Jean." Logan was shouting now. "And that's the last mistake. I know Scott's dead. Jean killed him."

Scott had managed to back out of striking range momentarily. His whole left side felt like it was on fire. And Logan was closing fast, claws straight out to spear him.

_I can't die. Who will save Jean?_ Scott's only way out was another dive to the right again, which put him on the floor, in one of the rounded alcoves next to a locked door. He heard the claws ring against the metal wall. Scott put a hand to his ribs. His T-shirt stuck to his skin, heavy with blood.

"God, Logan. Listen to me!" His voice vibrated on the edge of panic. That wasn't how he wanted his last words to sound.

Logan pivoted like a cat. He was panting hard. He still looked angry. "What are you? Why these games?"

From somewhere, Scott grabbed a measure of calm. He struggled up to one knee, but that was as far as he would get to standing. If this didn't work, he'd die on his knees and he hated that thought. "Which one of us is the dick now, Logan?"

Logan's eyes widened. "It can't be… she said she--" Then his gaze darted wildly, searching. "What's happening?"

Scott felt as if he were on a rapidly descending elevator. His insides seemed to want to push up through his throat. The nearly weightless sensation chilled him. He knew what that feeling meant. He'd folded again.

"No! Listen, Logan. I'm here. Damn it, you have to listen to me."

"Where the hell are you? Come back." Logan cursed savagely. "Stop running out on us, you bastard."

"I'm not running." Scott barely found breath for the words. His head was spinning and he knew it was shock from the pain and blood loss coupled with the stress of folding. If he passed out, he might not wake up again.

Logan searched angrily, still swearing and shouting his name. But, the sounds seemed so far away. Scott sagged back against the curved wall, clutching his ribs with both hands. The edges of his vision darkened. He was losing consciousness.

He'd run out of time.


	7. Chapter 7

Author's Note: Thanks for all the love you are giving my story. I write largely to see other people's enjoyment, so this is wonderful.

This chapter and the next are on the long side. I'm not a fast writer, so there may be a slight delay in getting the next installment up, but don't give up on it. I won't take too long.

* * *

Chapter Seven

Rage gone, Logan stared at the empty alcove. He swept his hands through the space, claws now safely sheathed, but felt nothing. The heavy door at the back of the alcove led to a storage room, he thought, but it hadn't opened to allow any escape. Scott, or what had appeared to be Scott, had simply vanished.

"Come on. Stop playing." Logan growled a few more curses.

"Logan, are you coming?" Storm called from the hanger entrance.

"Get the professor."

"What's going on?"

"Just get him," Logan ordered, and she went obediently. The fact unsettled him. He got that increasingly familiar squeezed feeling. Life was pushing him down a narrowing path he'd never asked for and didn't want. _Damn it, Scott. I wanted your girl, not your job._

He stared back at the empty floor. A moment ago, Scott had been kneeling there, real and solid. Hell, he'd been bleeding. Now even the dark smear of blood that had stained the polished floor was gone. Logan sniffed the air. He smelled nothing. There wasn't even a metallic tang in the air to mark the blood.

Every sense told him he'd been fighting an illusion, and yet something, perhaps only the texture of the air, warned him that all his highly developed senses lied. He knelt slowly, even more slowly stretched his open hand toward the floor. _Come on, man, just a hint. Give me something._

"Logan," Charles' voice startled him. He'd been so intent on what he was doing he'd missed the whir of the wheelchair's approach. "We have to go. Jean is dangerous."

"Scott was here."

"That's not possible." Charles not only sounded certain, he smelled and looked positive as well.

Logan eased his hand back and rested it on his bent knee. He wasn't as convinced. _Something_ had been there, and an itch along his skin told him something still _was_. "He looked pretty damn real. And I made him bleed."

"The mind is good at filling in details where needed. We can't know what Jean may have put into yours, or why."

"You think Jean is making me see things?"

"I don't know. But, believe me when I say whatever you saw, whatever you fought, it was not Scott."

"If you say so," Logan agreed. He rose quietly, still staring at the floor. Charles was the smartest man he'd ever met. He had to know, right? Logan still wasn't convinced.

He'd made a mistake trusting his physical senses alone. He hadn't smelled Scott, and the figure in front of him had been at least three days from the last shower so he should have smelled something. Jean had said, well hinted, that she'd killed Scott. So he'd acted. His instincts had never failed him before, but now those very instincts were telling him he'd gotten it wrong.

-----

Scott sucked in great gasps of air when Logan finally stopped pressing down on his chest. He knew the intent hadn't been to suffocate him, but he hadn't been able to move out of the way fast enough to avoid being slowly crushed against the floor.

_Out of time_, his mind echoed. Out of time for examining the options, for planning. He could only lie on the floor as Logan stood and followed Charles toward the hanger. They were going to confront the Eater of Souls thinking it was Jean, or Phoenix. Someone was going to die, maybe several someones. And Scott didn't know how to stop it.

He tried to sit up and his body screamed as though he were being ripped along the seams Logan's claws had made. By the time he got to his knees he was sweating and his head was spinning. It was shock from the injury. He knew that. But, he had to fight the weakness. He had to get up.

He could stop Charles and the others if he managed to get to the communications handset in his room and contact the Blackbird. _Logan will listen now. He recognized me at the end._ But Scott's room was four stories up, and he'd have to go back to Rogue's first so he could become solid again. He couldn't work the comm folded.

Scott tested the raw gashes along his ribs carefully. His jacket and T-shirt had been slashed cleanly, and the skin underneath as well. The wounds were deep, but he didn't think deep enough to sever muscle or reach bone, nothing fatal. Still, he wasn't in good shape. His mouth was dry, his vision wavering. That could be shock, dehydration, probably a combination of both causes.

The real danger, however, was the urge to lie back down on the floor and close his eyes. If he did that, he would die. So would others. His mind flashed back to that moment when Phoenix closed him into the jet. That was the last time he'd fought with his whole being for something, and the first time he'd truly failed. This moment felt like that one.

He could have done nothing to save her. She refused to let him. For some people that inevitability would prove a comfort, but for Scott it was crippling. Those moments when he'd been forced to simply sit by and watch disaster coming had been the worst of his life. "Not again. Let me die trying," he whispered. "Just that."

At first all he could manage was a crawl. Then he reached the emergency stairs and could use the handrail to drag himself to his feet. At the first landing, he was sure he'd never make it. By the third, he had absorbed the pain into the rhythm of his movements. His strength was returning. He was coming out of the initial shock.

He made it to Rogue's door and he gritted his teeth as he twisted through it. Scott was back on the floor at the end, breathing hard. But, he had only feet to cross now.

Rogue lay on her stomach, one leg bent at the knee, bare foot kicking lazily in the air as she flipped through her magazine. Her other leg stretched out along the mattress, toes dipping over the edge. She hadn't noticed him, not a surprise. Scott couldn't take the time for niceties this time. He simply stretched out one blood-smeared hand and grabbed hold of her dangling foot.

She bolted upright and screamed.

Somehow, he managed to keep hold of her as she twisted. She must have seen him then, because she stopped kicking.

"You scared the life right out of me." Her accent was thick which Scott was beginning to realize meant she'd been truly frightened. Her eyes widened farther as she focused on him. "You're hurt. What happened?"

"My first plan didn't work out. We have to move on to the next option."

"Have to move you to the infirmary, you mean." She caught hold of his hand to retain contact while shifting both feet off the bed. His fingers left a dark red ring around her instep.

"No. I lived with a doctor long enough to know how they think. They'll drug me. I need to contact the jet." He struggled to his feet with Rogue's help, but had to lean most of his weight against her. She was stronger than she looked because she held him without stumbling.

"In case you didn't notice, you're leaking blood all over my floor."

"I don't think it's as bad as it looks."

"If it were as bad as it looks you'd be dead." Rogue scowled when he refused to sit down on the corner of the bed. Apparently, she wasn't going to let this doctor thing drop easily.

"If you take me down to my room and help me use the comm handset I left there, I promise to go to the infirmary. Deal?"

Her expression said she didn't like it, but she muttered, "Deal. If you die on the way, though, you better leave a note explaining I'm not responsible. I'm tired of people not believing me."

-----

Marie admired Scott's determination, driven as it was by love. She coveted it really. But, this was a bad idea. Scott needed to be in the infirmary. Still, she could hardly knock him out and carry him down there. He was heavier than he looked, and likely even in his weakened state he could probably kick her ass in a fight if she tried. So, she kept her arm away from his wounds as best as she could and helped him navigate the mansion's halls toward the room he'd once shared with Dr. Grey.

The detached expression on Scott's face scared her more than his wounds. He seemed so far away. She thought about how often he'd disappeared into private misery in the past year. Now, with him disappearing physically as well, if he lost himself in such single-minded purpose they could have a real problem.

"You're going to hang around, right? No vanishing now?"

"I don't think I can vanish if we have skin to skin contact," Scott told her. "The first time I touched you I seemed to stay unfolded for about ten minutes, maybe a bit less."

"I think you need to explain this folding and unfolding thing a little better." If she could keep him talking, maybe she could keep him from disappearing mentally into whatever dark place he might be slipping.

"Okay." His voice sounded stronger than before. "There's three dimensions, right? Up and down, right and left, forward and back, all at right angles to each other."

"Like geometry, right? X, Y, and Z axis."

"Yes. Now imagine that there's a whole other set of dimensions, another up-down, right-left, front-back at an angle different from the ones you're used to. You can't see them, but they are there. That's where I go when I vanish. I fold out of sight, into those places."

"How did that happen?" They reached his room. He pressed a very solid hand against the security plate. Marie turned the knob and opened the door.

"Jean was trying to save me from the Eater of Souls."

Just the name -- Eater of Souls -- made her shiver, sharp and sudden. The intensity of that reaction stunned Marie. Or maybe it wasn't his words eliciting that visceral response, but the place they'd just entered. Marie surveyed Scott's room for the source of her sudden dread.

At first glance, the space appeared ordered, but clothes had been tossed on the floor near the window, a newspaper sprawled on the bench next to the dresser. The clutter looked unnatural here. The decor was dark, more masculine than she thought Dr. Grey would have accepted -- all orange-golds, black, and wood paneling. Taken at that surface level, it was an ordinary man's room, nothing to spawn a desire to run. Yet, that's exactly what Marie wanted to do the instant she stepped inside.

She guided Scott to the hastily made bed, and helped him shrug out of his leather jacket. Almost as soon as he dropped it on the bed, the jacket disappeared. That was a little freaky, but Marie ignored the strangeness. She knelt on the floor to inspect the wound in his side. "Eater of Souls? That sounds particularly gruesome."

"It looks even worse."

He flinched as she pulled the stiff, blood-soaked fabric away from his skin. Underneath, the gashes still wept a thin trail of bright red, but they were sealing up. He was right. Even Marie's meager first aid training told her the injury wasn't as bad as it first appeared. What unsettled her was the obvious source. "Logan did this to you?"

"We had a misunderstanding." Scott dismissed the encounter. "What matters now is contacting the Blackbird and warning Logan and the others what they'll be facing when the find Jean."

"This Eater of Souls thing, you mean." She continued to study the gashes at his ribs. Should she offer to clean them? Or would a bandage be enough? The thought of having to punch a needle through his skin to sew the cuts made her stomach queasy. His muscles contracted sharply every time he breathed. That probably meant he was still in pain. She bit her lip and touched his skin just below the wound. His body felt slightly cool, a little sweaty. "You should probably still go to the infirmary. And your shirt is ruined."

"I have other shirts." He ignored the infirmary suggestion. "I don't need you to fuss with me, Rogue. I need the communications unit I took off the bike before heading to Alkali Lake. It's on the nightstand there. Would you get it for me?"

If he were feeling all right, he would have gotten the handset for himself. Still, Marie pushed to her feet and went over to the nightstand. The unit sat next to a bottle of pills that had probably come from the medical bag resting on the floor nearby. The drawer hung slightly open and inside she saw what looked like the grip of a pistol. What the hell was that all about?

Marie's stomach twisted tighter. This corner of the room felt tight, even more oppressive than the rest of the space. The air pressed down on her. It felt almost the same as Scott's folded presence, but this had a malevolence that she'd not associated with his closeness. Neither she nor Scott belonged in this place. She picked up the handset and turned, eager to get away from the evidence of how dark his thoughts had been recently.

Scott pulled the bloody shirt all the way off and tossed it across the room toward the pile near the window. Like the jacket, it landed and then disappeared. He tried to inspect his own wounds. She watched him, trying to figure out what to do next. When he looked up, he held out his hand for the handset. "The Eater of Souls is the danger, Rogue. It has to be our first priority. I need you to understand that."

"So, tell me what's so bad about it." Her voice shook a little. She had no idea why. It was just the two of them in the room, and Scott was no danger to her. If anything, she felt more comfortable with him now than ever before. She was even thinking of him as Scott rather than Mr. Summers or Cyclops. No, it was definitely this room making her uncomfortable, or the clues lying about it.

"Jean described it as a parasite that attaches to the soul at death. When she died…" he seemed to still have trouble saying that word in association with his fiancée. "It invaded her. She's fighting it, but it's strong. She said it's evil. Having seen it, experienced what it tried to do to me, I believe her."

"What was that?"

He'd flipped the handset open and was trying to call the jet. His eyes alone turned toward her. "It tried to make me kill myself."

The pills, the gun in the drawer -- she'd already known what they meant, but having him say it aloud, so casually, made the truth more real. She imagined him alone, in despair, driven to almost destroy himself. Yet, something had prevented him. "It failed."

His gaze still locked with hers. "Barely. I kept thinking Jean wouldn't want me to."

_I'm an intruder here,_ Marie thought. She watched Scott tap more keys on the handset. His expression shifted from focused to frustrated. This was his private, painful world and she didn't belong. So why was he pulling her into it? And why was she allowing him to?

"I can't reach them," Scott grumbled. "They aren't picking up the call."

"We should go then. You still should have a doctor look at those cuts." _I want away from here._ There was such a thing as too much closeness.

"No. I'm going to give them time." He got up from the end of the bed, more slowly than she thought he would have under other circumstances, and put the handset into her palm. "I need to shower and think. You watch that. I set it to auto-call every two minutes. If someone responds, you get me."

"Out of the shower?" The thought was a bit startling.

He laughed then, breaking some of the oppression in the room. "I'll hear you call through the door, Rogue."

"Oh, right." She wished he'd use her real name. "Just don't disappear while you are in there, okay?"

He paused, stepped closer, and rested a hand against her face. No moment of hesitation, no flash of fear across his face that said he wondered if the touch would hurt. That trust pushed the dread away. Marie couldn't help covering his hand with her own. That was almost, not quite, right.

She went on instinct, leaning in until she could rest her cheek against his chest, curling arms around his torso. The rhythm of his heartbeat against her ear, that was right. His hands settled on her shoulders.

"Making sure I'm good and solid?" he teased.

"Something like that." _Nothing like that._ She just wanted to feel him breathing and close. She wanted to soak up some of that love she envied so. That love didn't belong to her, but she could borrow it for a few moments. She memorized the texture of his skin against her cheek, his sweat-salted scent, the solid weight of his back muscles and of his hands on her shoulders. She pushed from her mind the thought that these stolen sensations were all she'd ever have. She wasn't going to be that sad, angry girl anymore. She was going to be strong. She was going to look forward. She was going to fight despair, seize hope.

"I guess you really don't want to have to come in the shower and feel around for me."

She must be making him uncomfortable. Not surprising, she supposed, given that she was clinging to his bare chest. She wanted to tell him it wasn't what he thought. She couldn't find the right words. Nor was she quite ready to release him. She couldn't tell him that either.

"What if you can't save her?" she asked instead.

_What if I can't save you?_ That was the question she couldn't ask. This room revealed the dark side of the sort of love he gave. She saw it in the pills, in the pistol hiding in the drawer. Perhaps this Eater of Souls he talked about was what pushed him toward that horrible answer, but the despondency it fed had already been in him. It was part of the love he felt.

"I can't let myself think that way," he said.

"I think you have to, Scott. She's not the only one who needs you. We all do. And you left us." She turned her head so she could look up at him, and looking into his face that way was more intimate even than resting against his body. The closeness emboldened her. "We need you more than we need her."

"More than I need her?" He sounded a little helpless.

"I hope so." She had to let him go then.

He squeezed her shoulder once before turning away. She couldn't tell if she'd reached him or not. "Watch the comm. They have to respond eventually to the auto-call."

She watched him gather fresh clothes and a towel out of the dresser drawers. Everything seemed to have a dark side -- her powers certainly, also Scott's love for Dr. Grey. Maybe all of life was both joy and agony. If she could continue to focus on the good her powers could bring him and on the strength and courage she'd seen earlier in his love, maybe she could save them both.

It seems an overwhelming task, one she wouldn't have dared take on just a few days earlier. But, her perspective was changing. She felt stronger now. When he disappeared into the bathroom, leaving her alone, she refused to give in to the sense of doom that instantly closed in around her.

She perched on the edge of his bed, cautiously. Touching him and now sitting here bothered her in ways she didn't want to look at too closely. Had she lied to herself a moment ago when she'd told herself none of this was sexual? Was there a selfish side to her desire to save him as well? She remembered how, when he first touched her, she drifted into her fantasy so easily.

After a moment, Marie couldn't stand sitting on his bed any longer. She went to the other side of the room where warm sunlight spilled from the window onto the floor. It felt less oppressive here in the brightness, as if she'd left the dark things over by the nightstand with the instruments of suicide.

She began picking up the clothes he'd tossed there. The light film of dust on the sill, the motes that floated in the air as she disturbed the clutter, seemed, like the strewn clothing, wrong. Scott wouldn't be so messy under normal circumstances. He'd be compulsively neat, ordered, controlled. Folding the shirts and straightening the papers on the bench seemed another step in fighting the chaos for him.

_He's not going to kill himself. He fought the Eater's urging before. He'll fight it now. And I'll convince him we need him._ She didn't like that her mind added a quiet _I need him_ to the end of that.

-----

Scott braced his hands against the tile and let the shower beat his shoulders and neck. The water stung as it rolled, soap-laced, over the slashes in his side, but he liked the pain. Pain was real, like the needle spray and the slick, hard tile. After his time in those strange folded places, normal sensations were a blessing.

His thoughts were less calming than the water. Rogue's question chewed at his mind. What if he couldn't save Jean?

In some ways, the idea was familiar. Scott had spent a long time believing she was beyond his aid. He'd replayed his failure to rescue her at the dam endlessly. That torture had worn a groove in his psyche the Eater easily manipulated. Still, Jean's continued link with him had always kept the belief she was gone at arm's length. A part of him knew she wasn't truly gone, even if he'd thought she'd never come back to him.

Now, with that link severed, she felt more out of reach than she had when he knew she was at the bottom of Alkali Lake.

Scott knew all the things he would miss if Jean never returned to him. He'd miss her cuddling under his arm for late night talks, the silently companionable Sunday mornings as they passed sections of the _New York Times_ back and forth. He'd miss her coaxing him to bring her ice cream after sex. He'd miss all the little personal things that he'd never share in exactly the same way with any other person.

And still, none of those losses were what drove him. In the end, it came down to one thing. If he couldn't save her, he'd never get the chance to prove he loved her first and always, that he hadn't wanted her alter ego more.

Scott watched the water sluice down his legs. A blood-tinged pool formed at his feet, but by the time the water reached the drain it was clear again. The change offered a reminder that reality was still a temporary state for him. Without Rogue's touch to keep him here, he would fold back up into that stiff, impotent hell.

_We need you,_ Rogue had told him. _More than we need her._ Was he being selfish in his determination to save Jean? Rogue had risked herself to unfold him. She trusted him too, needed his leadership. Maybe he needed to look beyond his own emotions to the rest of his team.

Still torn, Scott turned off the water. He toweled dry enough that he could pull on clothes without the cloth sticking to his skin. Habit made him wipe down the shower and then fold the wet towel over the heated bar to dry quickly even though Jean was no longer there to worry about mold. Then he returned to the bedroom and found Rogue collecting the old newspapers he'd left on the bench.

"Don't," he began. The papers were the last edition he and Jean had read together. Rogue put them back down slowly, confusion spreading across her face. He shook his head. "I'm sorry. It's alright."

"They're old."

"I know." He swallowed hard and miraculously the lump forming in his throat vanished. "It's time to clean up around here. Thanks."

She offered him a weak, uncertain smile, but it bolstered him. It was time to let go of the past. He could try to save Jean. In fact, he needed to. But, he had to think beyond that as well. The Eater wanted everyone at the school, Rogue included. They needed him to save them even more than Jean did.

"Look, Rogue, I really don't think I need the infirmary. The scratches are all but sealed up. I'm not going to bleed to death and there are butterfly bandages in Jean's old medical bag."

"Let me see." She put the newspapers into the trash, then retrieved the medical bag, with more than necessary haste, from the floor. "I still wish you'd see a doctor. You should probably get a shot of antibiotics or something."

"Logan's claws are surgically clean. I want to meet the disease microbe that can live in his body." Scott meant it to be a joke, but as he lifted his shirt to let her work he had to hiss. It hurt to raise his arms.

"It still hurts, doesn't it? And you look worn out, sort of pale and shaky."

He did feel drained. "I think it's the folding and unfolding. The transition saps my strength."

Her fingers were light against his skin, even when she pulled a little. "Well, you're right about the wounds closing. I only needed to put on a couple bandages. But, I still want to take you to the infirmary."

"And I still need to wait for that call." He lowered the shirt again, and stared at her. "This isn't just about Jean. It's about all of you."

"You are reneging on your promise here," she scolded, but he could tell she'd lost the will to fight him about the doctor.

"I know I am. Rogue, I'm just tired. I'll lie down for a while and rest here. Give me two hours. If I don't feel better by then, you can drag me to the infirmary.

"You'll have vanished again."

Scott was certain he would not have been able to read the conflicting emotions on Rogue's face if he'd tried three days ago. Now, he easily separated the uncertainty from the stubbornness. Adversity and need brought people close quickly. Yet, he couldn't help wondering if this situation wasn't building them toward something more. He felt a growing need to protect her, not just from the Eater, but from unnecessary worry and pain.

"You're probably right," he told her. "But, I promise to stay right here. You'll be able to find me easily enough and bring me back." Then he added, "Or, you could stay and make sure I don't fade."

She ducked her head. He felt instantly contrite for embarrassing her. "Rogue, I wasn't suggesting--"

"I just don't want to sit here and watch you sleep, okay. I mean, I like you and all, but talk about boring." She dug the handset out of her jeans pocket and passed it to him before taking several steps toward the door. She was obviously eager to go.

He let her cover stand. "Two hours. That's all I need."

"I'll be back then, and if you are the least bit weak you're going to the doctor." She left the door open about a third of the way when she went out.

Scott put the handset back on the nightstand and eased himself onto the bed. He felt tired, and troublesomely light, though he didn't think he was quite folding again. He glanced at the handset once more, then changed his mind about leaving it on the stand. If he folded again, he wanted it with him. Cradling it against his chest, he let his eyes close.

-----

In the jet, Logan tried to get his mind to focus on the upcoming rescue mission. He had to think of it as a rescue. Not an apprehension. Sure as hell not a take down. They were going after Jean for God's sake. He glanced across the cabin to where the professor sat staring out the window at clouds. Charles could call it whatever he liked. Logan refused to think of this as anything but a rescue.

He thought back to how Jean woke. She'd become his fantasy in those moments -- teasing and sexy, wanting him not Scott. At any other time since he met her, Logan wouldn't have hesitated. Charles' insistence that she was evil didn't frighten him. She wasn't evil. She was Jean. Nor was he seriously concerned, at that moment, about what she had or hadn't done to Scott. Hell, that he'd even thought about Scott while Jean stripped him was an aberration.

Instinct had stopped his libido. His every sense had screamed they were not alone. He'd known there was someone, or something, in the infirmary room with Jean and himself.

It was the same when Scott vanished in the hallway outside the hanger. Logan knew, whatever the professor said, that Scott hadn't completely disappeared. If he'd been able to stretch his senses just a little farther, Logan was sure he could have found the supposed dead man.

"About to touch down," Storm announced from the front of the plane. "We should have a car waiting to take us to Jean's house."

"We will need to hurry," the professor said.

Logan moved up into the co-pilot's seat. He wouldn't me much help in landing, but he wanted a quiet moment with Storm. "This mission, we have to think about--"

A signal was flashing on the panel to his right, out of Storm's line of vision. "What is that?"

Her eyes widened when she looked. "Communication alert. Why is it on silent?"

Logan hit a button and the panel slide away to release the handset. He picked it up, checked the coding. "That's Scott's code."

"But that's impossible."

"Is it?" Logan flipped the handset to open. "We're here. Who is this?"

The line sounded hollow and vacant. No one responded to his voice.

-----

Scott woke the instant he heard the handset chirp. He rolled to a seated position on the side of the bed and fumbled the unit to his ear. "Summers. Ororo, is that you?"

Logan's voice came over the link, sure and strong, but he didn't seem to hear Scott's reply. "We're here. Who is this?"

"Logan, it's me. Cyclops. Listen--"

"Damn it, if you're there, talk to me."

"I am talking to you, Logan. You need to know about Jean--"

"Is someone there. Answer me, damn you!"

Scott let out a string of curses most in the school wouldn't believe he knew. He sat up and dropped the handset onto the nightstand. There was no point in trying to respond to Logan's angry, frustrated voice. Clearly, he'd folded again and the comm signal wouldn't cross the planes of reality to reach the jet.

Why couldn't they have answered sooner? Why wasn't Rogue here to keep him from folding again? Why couldn't he catch even a thread on luck's coattail?

Scott let his head fall forward into his hands. And out of the corner he saw a long, sinuous shape protruding from the wall above the night stand. His whole body went cold at the sight. The tentacle was no thicker than his thumb, but he could see strong muscles working under the skin as it twitched. At the end, a heavy head hung, round as his fist and full of glistening, translucent globs. It was one of the Eater's egg stalks hovering close, waiting for him.

* * *

Note: I know, I know, another cliff hanger. But this chapter was already over 5K when I stopped. Sometimes, this is just how they seem to end. 


	8. Chapter 8

Note: As always, thanks for the comments and reviews. I love hearing from everyone. Here's another long chapter. The story, for me, is getting really exciting here with the first big action scenes. Hope you like them.

As a reminder: simple thoughts are always _just italics_, while telepathy is _italics and underlined_.

And, of course, I still don't own X-men. WHEN are they going to break down and just give it to me? (insane laughter) And, where a scene comes directly from the movie, some or all dialogue is quoted directly.

* * *

Chapter Eight

Marie paced her room, changing her mind about whether to return to Scott's room each time she reached the door. There was no reason to think Scott was in danger. He was no longer suicidal. She wouldn't return and find he'd blown his head off. He wasn't going to die in two hours from those cuts along his ribs. She circled back toward her bed.

But, Logan was always telling her to trust her instincts, and those instincts were screaming that something deadly lurked in Scott's room. She headed back toward the door.

Forty-five minutes, she noticed as she passed the clock. Scott would be justifiably irritated at her if she came back an hour early to wake him because she thought there was a proverbial monster in his closet. And yet, he'd told her they were fighting a real monster, the Eater of Souls. He'd be a lot angrier if she left him to face that alone. To do that would be to forget everything she'd been taught as an X-man. Team members didn't run out on each other like frightened children. Yet, the moment Scott gave her the chance to bolt from his room, she'd taken it.

This time, when she reached for the doorknob, she turned it. Earlier in the day she'd promised herself she was going to be tough. That was a joke. Her hand was shaking and she hadn't even left her own room yet.

She thought about what the other team members would do. Storm or Logan would be facing down the trouble already. She suspected Bobby would as well, or Peter.

_Peter could help_. Logan was gone. And asking Bobby to come with her would be a bit weird given the way her feelings for him, and for Scott, were bending in her mind. But, Peter was solid, practical, and simply a friend. There was no reason she shouldn't take reinforcements with her to face a monster, right?

She headed down the opposite direction from Scott's room, toward Peter's.

----

Scott stared at the limb protruding from his wall. Within each translucent egg he saw a tiny Eater twitch. The egg sack looked ready to burst.

His heart pounded and all exhaustion burned away in a wash of adrenaline. Had that thing been waiting for him the whole time he sat in this room mourning Jean? He had a vision of the snake-like limb hovering over him while, the pistol in his hands, he thought about the blissful oblivion of death.

He thought about Charles, weeping in his office that morning. If the long limbs of the Eater could stretch from Alkali Lake, and now from wherever Jean had gone, to Scott's room, one certainly could find its way to the professor. Jean possessed by the Eater was dangerous enough. Would anyone be safe if one of those monsters controlled Charles Xavier?

Scott's spine tingled in the now-familiar warning. The creature was becoming aware of him. He watched the heavy head of the stalk pivot toward him. Scott straightened slowly, letting the monstrous appendage twist out of view.

It reappeared. He got off the bed. This time when he moved, the limb didn't vanish. The Eater had folded into his space.

-----

Marie pounded on Peter's door. "Open up. I need your help."

"The professor said to stay inside." The door cracked enough for Peter to frame his face in the opening. "You should not be in the hallway."

That was Peter, always interpreting the rules as rigidly as possible. Maybe she should have gone to Bobby despite her awkward feelings about the situation. "Peter, are you a baby or an X-man? I need you to help me."

He stepped aside and gestured her into the room. "Explain what's happening."

Which was exactly what she didn't want to do. Peter hadn't been with the crowd who found her in the kitchen the other night, but he was sure to have heard about it. "I'm in kind of a hurry here."

"If you were in that big a hurry you wouldn't pound on my door. You'd just open it," he countered. Marie released a sigh and stepped into the room.

He backed away quickly as she approached, staring at her hands. Only at that moment did Marie realize she'd left her gloves in her room. It had felt so natural to go without them when she was with Scott. Now, she felt naked. She curled her arms around her own body. "Sorry, I forgot."

"You never forget."

"Yeah, well, like I said I'm in a hurry."

Peter maintained his distance even thought her hands were now safely tucked into her own armpits. His reaction reminded her what her reality really was -- people, even friends, were afraid to touch her for good reason. Peter had been a vague and shadowed presence in her mind since he touched her during the Danger Room session last week. Everyone she touched was there.

Everyone but Scott. For all the touching they'd done today, she carried no part of him inside her. The fact made him seem less real, more and more her fantasy lover. And fantasies were never real.

"Where are we going?" Peter asked, and Marie realized she'd been staring off into the corner.

"Sco -- Cyclops' room, one floor up. I think he's in danger."

----

The Eater's tentacle shot forward. Scott barely dodged the attack. That thing was fast.

A single egg dropped like a tear, landing on the floor where Scott had been an instant earlier. The second the egg touched the wooden floor, it cracked. A wiggling Eater, no larger than Scott's little finger, uncurled. It shriveled into a dried husk.

_So, it runs into something other than me, the egg dies._ Maybe he could use that. The thing swung at him again, like a fist. This time, he caught the snaky tentacle right behind the head. He jammed the egg sack down into the top of the nightstand.

The Eater's limb phased through the wood almost as gracefully as Kitty Pryde walked through walls. His hand didn't. Scott released his hold before his fist slammed painfully into the wood. That wasn't going to work.

The limb had vanished, but Scott had no doubt it would be back. He took the opportunity to squeeze past the partially open door into the hallway. The Eater had could follow him now. He knew it would find its way through the door as well.

What he needed was a plan of attack. He never wished so acutely for his optic blasts as he did right now.

The first objective had to be to get the thing away from his room. Rogue would be returning. He didn't want to think about an Eater getting into her. The second objective was to keep from being possessed himself. He'd like to kill the limb, if he could. But, that was going to be hard without weapons.

The Eater came at him up through the floor this time. If it hadn't had to orient itself, the fight might have ended there. As it was, the thing paused when it reappeared. He had time to deliver a solid kick to the twisting limb as it lunged. Another egg dropped to the floor and died.

Scott backed down the hall. He didn't think he could count on that sort of luck holding.

-----

_Float books. Levitate the table. Boil the drinking water in the cooler._

Jean expended as much telekinesis as she could on useless tasks. With every effort she felt the Eater grow more angry. It knew she inhabited the same body, but had no idea what she was or how she could use its power.

_Because it's not yours, you bastard. The power, the body, the mind are all rightly mine. _Except that wasn't strictly true. Even before the Eater, she'd shared all three with Phoenix.

It was Phoenix she hoped to rouse with all this telekinetic chaos. But, Phoenix, who she had hated, who had become her sister at the moment of death, and who was now her only chance to defeat a monster, remained oblivious to Jean's prodding. She kept trying.

Because Phoenix was not gone as Jean had told Scott. She'd woken, like some fairytale heroine, when Logan touched them in the infirmary. Sleeping Beauty had never been all passion and seduction, however. Jean had been powerless to do more than ride the desire that engulfed their shared body. She still mourned what she'd done to Scott, her own love, in the misguided effort to save him and Phoenix's eager lust had been hard to take. But, she'd rejoiced in the possibility of an ally in the fight against the Eater of Souls.

_Rattle the windows. Shake the chair. Feel the power I'm stealing, Phoenix. Pay attention to me._

Only the Eater protested her efforts. It had passed beyond anger now. Fury and a longing for revenge washed over her. Jean realized it was trying to do something that required deep concentration and focus and she was thwarting its efforts. She turned her attention to the monster.

Its consciousness flowed along one of its long limbs, warping through space in a way that made Jean's head ache as she followed. At the end of that journey, she found herself staring out a hundred sets of compound eyes. For an instant the broken pieces refused to form an image. But then, the vision condensed.

_Mocking, hunger, the need to show her its victory_ The Eater wanted her to watch.

She was in the hallway outside her bedroom at the mansion. The scene shifted wildly, as if she were running. No, striking, like a snake. The target was Scott.

Jean cringed. The oily, eager minds of the baby Eaters she inhabited made her want to retch. In the now distant study of her parents' house, she lost control of several books she'd been levitating.

Scott dodged the attack smoothly, but why wasn't he countering? Defend and counter-attack -- he'd drilled that into all of them during training.

_He doesn't know how to kill it,_ Jean realized. _But, I do._

_Hatred, gloating. Power._ The Eater pulled telekinetic power from Phoenix to hurl at Scott.

-----

The hallway erupted in chaos. Scott barely avoided a huge painting as it sliced toward him, metal frame pointed at his throat. Bulbs burst in the lamps lining the walls. Scott knew he had to get out of the narrow confined of the hallway. Everything -- vases, tables, benches -- would soon be projectiles and with his limited mass even a decorative plate could be lethal. Worse, he couldn't watch all the flying debris and the Eater as well.

It came at him out of the wall, almost behind him. He grabbed the stalk again, pushed it toward the floor. The wood couldn't hurt it. He knew that now. But, phasing through objects did seem to disorient the monster for a few moments.

Plates shattered as they fell. At least the Eater couldn't control its telekinesis and phase at the same time. Scott got a instant's reprieve to think.

The fact the Eater could use Jean's power while folded gave it a serious advantage over Scott. He had to find his own weapon fast. But what?

He didn't want to be trapped in a room, so he'd have to take the stairs.

-----

_Whatever you do, I can do,_ Jean thought. She pulled power, telepathy this time, for her own use. Through the unwilling minds of the unborn Eaters she called, _Scott_.

-----

_Scott!_

Jean's telepathic voice emerging from that hideous cluster of eggs almost cost Scott his footing on the stairs. He caught the railing to steady himself and the Eater almost connected with his chest. He stumbled down three steps, heart racing and lungs aching from exertion. Two more floor down and he'd reach the ground.

"Jean? Are you here? How?" He refused to believe she'd been taken over by the monster.

_I'm here. It's me._ Scott glimpsed a room with pale, striped walls and rows of bookcases. He shook his head. He couldn't look through Jean's eyes now. He had to keep focused on the fight.

_Life repels the Eater, Scott. Kill it with life._

"What does that mean?"

Scott stood at the head of the grand stair leading into the entry hall, momentarily disoriented. He wasn't sure how he'd cleared the last few steps to get here. He scanned the space, searching for the Eater. It had vanished.

Slowly, he eased his way down to the landing. There, the railing curved into a half circle and a tall potted palm hid part of a stained glass window. The slate floor of the entry hall was about a twelve-foot drop below. His breath sounded harsh in his ears and his ribs burned. He touched his side. The shirt was wet and warm. He was bleeding again. He didn't have a lot of fight left.

"Jean? What do you mean kill with life?"

_Outside, Scott. Outside._

What was outside? Life -- trees, grass, birds. The Eater entered the soul at death. There were holes in that argument. Scott knew he wasn't dead so how --

The limb burst out of the landing practically between his feet. He fell back against the railing, catching the thing in both hands to hold it away from his face. He saw the globe of one egg begin to swell, inches from his nose.

Scott jammed the egg sack into the potted palm. Several eggs shattered against one of the thin trunks. The living plant destroyed them. He squeezed the limb tighter, intent on grinding the whole head against the plant.

Just above his hands, twin fangs broke through the flesh of the stalk. They jabbed down and Scott had to release the thing to keep from being stabbed.

The Eater reared back, shaking free of the palm. Then it swiveled toward him again. A quarter of the egg sack oozed jelly and dead young. But, the fangs, now sprouting from fingerlike, twitching branches, clacked menacingly against each other as the whole limb arched upward.

The Eater still blocked his path down the stairs. The railing was at his back. And he didn't dare try to grab the thing again with those fangs darting about. Trapped. The only choice remaining was to dive over the railing to the floor.

-----

Jean felt a familiar and profoundly unwelcome pull that cost her contact with the baby Eaters. Her consciousness slammed back into her body with enough force to daze her. And Charles, just entering her parents' house, hooked a mental finger into her mind.

_Not now. Please not now. Scott needs me._ But, she'd already lost contact with him. In its place she felt the Eater's growing sense of triumph. _Please Charles, not now._

She sensed Charles approaching. His hold strengthened as he drew closer until his mind seemed to surround the whole house. The only good thing in that was that the Eater noticed. Now it would have to divide its attention between Charles and Scott. Perhaps that would give Scott a small advantage in his fight.

The Eater grabbed control of their body as Charles entered the room with Magneto. Jean lost all connection to her telekinesis. The tables and books she'd been floated thumped to the floor. She had to fight even the desire to smile when the Eater wanted the expression. She couldn't see the new egg stalk, but she sensed as on thickened and curled around behind Charles' chair. A hundred hungry thoughts swarmed her skull, _Covet, take._ "I knew you'd come."

Charles had no idea what spoke to him. His tone was reassuring, as if he confronted an old, dear friend. "Of course. I've come to bring you home."

"I have no home." The Eater mimicked her voice perfectly. How was Charles to ever realize the danger he was in?

"Yes you do. You have a home and a family." Charles offered comfort mentally as well. He did want to help, but Jean knew she was beyond his aid She hoped he wold not be beyond hers. _Phoenix_, Jean called, desperate now. _Wake up. Help me fight it._

The full force of the Eater's mind turned on Jean. Its outrage rolled through her. He understood its rage at the unfairness of their unnatural life. It was supposed to be the chosen child, possessor of the greatest power ever seen on Earth. And yet it had so little time to relish omnipotence.

Because, they were all dead, she, Phoenix, and the Eater. Had it taken her in any sort of normal death, they would be alive. It was the life cycle of the Eater to heal the dying body as it absorbed the dying soul. Her monster had healed the initial crush of the water that wrecked Jean's body. But months entombed, without enough air, or food, kills as surely as tons of water. And the infant Eater had no way to heal that deprivation.

Only the sheer strength of their mutation allowed them to continue moving, only illusion kept their true state a secret. If she looked inside, Jean saw what her true form was now -- a gray, dead thing with rot-black eyes. She couldn't bear that vision for long.

_You fight to save them?_ The Eater struggled to communicate more than violent, emotion. Telepathy was still a foreign thing for it. Along with the words, she received its fear of failure, its fury at having so little time in their body. Fifty years of power should have been its right. Instead, it struggled to birth its young before their flesh rots around it. _You should fight with me instead._

_Why would I ever do that?_

The library, Charles, Magneto, all vanished. Instead she stood in the old room she'd shared with Scott. The scene had the texture of memory. The detail said it was recent. Scott stood in the center of the room, wearing only his jeans. He looked too thin, too rough, she thought, as he had that day on the beach at Alkali Lake. He needed to take better care of himself.

Yet his body was still beautiful. He still stirred her as he always had. She remembered the scent of him, the sound of his breathing in her ear as they slept curled close. Why show her this? The sight of him only strengthened her resolve to fight.

_He's not alone,_ the Eater teased.

She saw Rogue then. Strange that the young woman should be with Scott in their room. They didn't even know each other well. Did they? Jean watched as the girl stepped closer. Scott rested a hand, gently against her face.

_Young, alive, soft and lovely,_ the Eater taunted. _Not like we are now._ It forced the hideous image of their dead flesh into her mind briefly. _You'll only keep him if he becomes us._ And the monster was right. Jean saw Rogue step into Scott's embrace, his hands come up to rest on her shoulders. A clammy fist grabbed her stomach and twisted. She was dead. She shouldn't have to watch him move on from loving her.

_Help us take him_, it coaxed, even as it shifted her from memory to a view of Scott trapped on the landing of the grand staircase. _He'll still belong to us._

----

Scott vaulted over the railing. He forced his body to relax as he fell. Lack of mass was finally a good thing. It meant he couldn't strike the floor with enough force to break bones. He landed easily, on the balls of his feet. Above, he saw the Eater's stalk waving wildly, searching for him. He sprinted for the outside, for the green world where everything he touched might be a weapon against the Eater.

-----

_No!_ Jean rejected the monster. The betrayal hurt. But, no one, least of all Scott who'd suffered for her and tried to save her, deserved the hell of an Eater's possession.

"You want to control me?" The feel of her own lips moving pulled Jean back to her parents' house. While the Eater had been tempting her to betray Scott, it had continued working on Charles.

"No," Charles answered quickly, though Magneto interrupted. Jean barely heard whatever Lensherr was babbling about. The Eater was wholly focused on Charles. Magneto might as well have been a mosquito in the room for all the interest it had in the man.

Why? Erik Lensherr was a powerful mutant, nearly as strong as Phoenix. Why didn't the Eater want to take him as well?

The Eater was so intent on Charles it forgot to guard its thoughts from Jean. The answer to her question came as a passing distaste, _Old, used up, no time left._ It wanted Scott because he was young, strong, and powerful. Like hers, Magneto's body would die too quickly to provide a satisfactory host for the Eater's young.

Yet, Charles was almost the same age. _Need him_, came the Eater's flickering thought. _Grand plan._

"I want to help you," Charles pleaded. Jean felt his thoughts, prying gently but insistently into hers. He did want to help, but he was so wrong.

"Help me?" She fought the words, and failed to stop them. "What's wrong with me?"

_Oh God, Charles,_ Jean pleaded. _Don't play its gam_e. The Eater was coaxing Charles into this word play as it gathered Phoenix's power carefully. It had to be careful or risk waking her by drawing so much. Why did it need so much?

She glimpsed its plans. _Shatter glass, make knives, slice his soul free of life's armor. Devour._

It had to kill Charles before its young could take him. She flashed to Scott -- how could it take him without death? The answer bubbled from the Eater's dark mind. She'd folded Scott to the edge of death's realm, where souls traversed from life to the beyond. There life was weak. Folded, Scott's soul sat exposed. _Available_.

The image of Scott cradling Rogue in his arms pushed into Jean's mind again. She didn't want to look. This was worse than knowing he desired Phoenix. For all Jean's protests, she'd always known Phoenix was just the other side of herself. This was another, an alive and whole other. And it hurt so badly to watch them share that moment of tenderness.

A lamp shot across the room, shattering on the wall. The Eater had created its first knives. Jean struggled to free herself from the painful vision. Deeper, in the tomb where Charles locked her, Phoenix stirred.

Trying to reach Phoenix, however, was like pushing through heavy clay. The Eater fought ever advance. It ravaged her emotions directly. Loneliness emptied her will. Anger burned. It reached Phoenix first and filled her with memories of every time Charles had suppressed her. Jean refused to surrender. She pressed her own thoughts forward. _Please, remember we're more than loss and pain. We're also --_

_Logan_, Phoenix called, not to Jean, but to the man she'd just sensed outside the house. Of course. Jean had missed the obvious.

_Love_, she reminded Phoenix. _If you give in to the Eater, anyone you love will die._ She had to remember the same herself -- but when she thought about Scott all she saw was that moment with Rogue, and the anger crippled her. _Don't think about him. Think about Charles and preventing what the Eater plans for him_.

_Love, Jean. I remember love._ Jean felt Phoenix drawing closer. Her thoughts were surprisingly soft, comforting. Jean wanted to fall into that mental embrace.

Charles pushed between them. _Don't, Jean. Leave her buried._

_God damn you, I'm trying to save you._ Why couldn't he listen? Even Scott, who had not one shred of mental powers, saw the monster. Jean wanted to slap Charles, to crush him. No, that had to be the Eater's thought. This was too dangerous. "Stay out of my head."

Her mouth spoke the words. She had control of their body for the first time since -- maybe since death. The Eater had pulled away. All its attention had suddenly focused on the distant fight with Scott.

Jean grabbed as much power as she could. She had no idea how long the Eater would be occupied with its other battle, nor what that outcome would be. She couldn't think about that. She had one chance and that was here, with Charles, with Phoenix.

Doors slammed, furniture rose. Outside, the gate rattled closed. Her power, Phoenix's too, hit her like a wave and Jean thought she would be crushed a second time. But, she caught hold, kept hold. _Phoenix, wake up now!_

_No!_ Charles wedged his will between them. "Look at me, Jean. I can help you. Look at me."

"Get out of my head." Phoenix was awake but Jean couldn't join with her. She pushed Charles' wheelchair back three feet, but could not budge his mind.

-----

Outside on the terrace that fronted the mansion, Scott had to fight the wind as he ran. He knew the breeze must be very light since he could keep his feet under him. He had to make it to the yard, still a long way down from the raised terrace before he'd find enough life to crush the Eater. He reached the balustrade, vaulted it without looking down, and felt his body drift.

The breeze carried him some distance from the house, depositing him as lightly on the grass as it would a dried leaf. He rested his hands on his knees and just breathed for a moment. _Safe._ In the middle of this living carpet of green, the Eater couldn't possibly reach him.

All he wanted to do was lie down and rest. The pain in his side, the exhaustion in his legs urged him to do just that. The flood of adrenaline was washing out of him, taking all his energy with it. He stared at the mansion. Its craggy turrets and imposing walls had always made him feel secure. They meant home. Now, he saw all that stone and cement as a harbor for the Eater.

No one inside was safe. The Eater's young still hungered to be born. It would choose a substitute host for its grotesque infants. Rogue, or Ororo, or one of the younger children. If he saved himself, he sacrificed them.

That thought alone made Scott straighten and start back toward the mansion. The grass stabbed his bare feet as he walked. He couldn't kill the whole monster. But, he could destroy the branch that had remained at the school. But first he had to coax it into another attack.

A semi-circular reflecting pool stood in front of the mansion and a cement wall surrounded it. The lawn rolled right up to that dead ring of concrete. Several low shrubs softened the harsh lines as well. This was as good a battlefield as he was likely to find. Scott put his hands on the wall. He leaned forward, pretending to stare into the glittering water.

He would have to grab it when it came at him, close behind the egg sack so his hand would be farther from where those fangs protruded. But, as long as the eggs died, he'd risk being stung with whatever poison those fangs might carry. Surviving this was only the secondary goal. Destroying the immediate threat to the school had to take precedence.

He stilled his mind. If the thing was using Jean's telepathy, he wanted it to sense only calm from him. _I'm safe. I'm no longer in danger. It's gone._ He made it a mantra in his head to fool the monster into thinking he was neither wary nor ready.

He didn't have to wait long. It came, not out of the wall as he'd expected, but from the center of the pool. Apparently whatever small life dwelt in the water wasn't sufficient to injure it. The head wavered side to side to sight him, then shot forward.

Scott caught hold. Several eggs released at once. The head shook, trying to scatter them onto him. The globes floated, wind-borne, rather than falling to the deadly grass.

Scott tugged the stalk away from the floating eggs. He pulled as hard as he could, trying to stretch the limb down to the grass. But, thin as it was, it was strong. It fought him. And the branches supporting those fangs elongated. The fangs stabbed. One missed.

He yelled, clenched with both fists, and wrenched the monster forward. It had to stretch or snap. It stretched. He beat the egg sack into the ground.

The globes ground to jelly. Each tiny Eater burst as it escaped its egg. The stalk itself began to jerk and twitch in its death throes. Until it was over, Scott didn't feel the pain. But, when the limb finally stilled he looked down and saw the broken fang sticking out of his forearm.

-----

"You must trust me. You're a danger to everyone and yourself. But, I can help you."

If it had just been the words, Jean could have ignored Charles and focused her whole will on connecting with Phoenix. They might only have moments while the Eater was distracted. Precious, precious moments. But, Charles' thoughts grappled with her as well. He showed her every embarrassment, every impulsive and reckless choice Phoenix ever made.

She couldn't fight him. He knew every weakness to hammer. Worse, she felt his love through all of it. Charles truly thought he was saving her when he locked Phoenix away. He thought the only other choice would have been to kill her, and that he couldn't do.

_Don't listen. Touch Phoenix. Together you can win_. She reached for her alter ego. Phoenix wasn't focused on her, though. Her attention was outside in the street. With Logan.

Jean felt the furniture bobbing against the walls, tasted the steam from the boiling kettle on the stove, smelled the salt of tears on her own cheeks, and heard Magneto's voice buzzing in her ears. From very far away, the Eater screamed in pain. And then it was returning, a storm rushing toward them all.

When Charles spoke again, he was like a magnet drawing all her hyperawareness to him. "Look what happened to Scott. You killed the man you love because you couldn't control your power."

"No!" Her voice broke on the cry. She was too late. "Stop it!" She didn't know, as the Eater ripped control of their body from her, if she screamed that final plea at Charles, or Phoenix.

It was Phoenix who heard.

The Eater shattered the windows behind them. More glass weapons for its slaughter. With a dismissive thought, it sent Magneto flying through the French doors to land against the cabinets in the kitchen. Inwardly, Jean sobbed, but the tears no longer reached her eyes.

_Scott, are you safe?_ She'd no doubt the Eater would be gloating if it had taken him. She took as some small hope the fact it was angry instead of triumphant. This battle for Charles was lost, however, unless Phoenix acted. And Phoenix's attention wavered.

Logan was losing a punishing fight with one of Magneto's men. And Phoenix couldn't decide whether to enter that battle, or this one.

"Jean. Let me in."

She would have let Charles take control. But, the Eater had command of their body and their powers. Cut completely off from even the ability to rattle books, Jean only could watch the struggle taking place before her.

The Eater gathered its weapons. Shards of sharp glass for knives and the broken legs of a table as spears. The weapons spun slowly, positioning for attack. In a moment, Charles would be dead and there was nothing Jean could do to stop it.

She could sense everything the Eater did, however, so she knew when it told the trailing stalk behind Charles to ripen, felt energy flood along that limb to wake the young. A set of venomous fangs grew beneath the egg sack in preparation for the second stage of possession.

_Charles, please listen to me. Forget what you think is happening and see what I see._ She couldn't project those thoughts telepathically, only think them as hard as she could and hope he would hear. And perhaps he did because his expression changed slightly.

The Eater stood their body up. It lifted Charles as well, positioning him as it wanted. Jean cringed inwardly. She didn't want to watch.

In that moment, Phoenix chose. Her scream echoed through their shared skull. She claimed the power she wanted. The Eater's protest was no more than an annoyance to her. She swatted it back as if it were a gnat.

And the whole house ripped away from its foundation. Furniture slammed into the ceiling. In the other room, the combatants were pinned as well. Phoenix was saving Logan. But, she had not forgotten Charles. She grabbed hold of the floating weapons as well.

Phoenix's attention focused on Jean. _He is dangerous? If the creature takes him everyone dies?_

Jean was afraid to so much as twitch mentally. Phoenix's assessment was true. Charles under the control of an Eater could be death to the whole world. But, how would Phoenix interpret a positive answer? Charles had locked her away for years because it was for the good of all. That was the choice she'd been taught.

Charles' clothing began to disintegrate. All around them, the house was spinning, rising, shaking. Jean could only shout, _No. Please don't._

She might as well have screamed into a hurricane. The Eater recovered from Phoenix's surprise attack. It tried to steal back control.

The pocket doors in the side wall slide open. Jean saw Logan, plastered tight against the ceiling, trying to pull himself into the room. His appearance distracted Phoenix just enough for the Eater to gain a foothold in their power.

Everything in the room froze. Whether it was Phoenix or the Eater, Jean could no longer tell. She did know they'd lost all ability to hold the illusion of life. Her body felt so cold, so rigid, so very very dead.

Charles looked at her. "Don't let it control you."

Did he see the monster at last, or still see Phoenix as the threat? Did he speak to Jean, or to the alter ego he'd so long vilified?

Whatever Charles intent, the Eater's was clear. The eggs were ready. They sat, invisible, right behind Charles. It intended to win this fight.

Charles' body shredded before her eyes. Not even dust remained.

-----

Scott pulled the fang out of his flesh and threw it down. The wound was deep, round, and oozed a brownish ichor that could not be good news. He staggered a little. The sunlight grew too hot, the air hard to breathe.

"Just a moment to sit," he muttered, easing himself down to the ground. If he just rested a bit, he would find the will to drag himself back up to his room where he could wait for Rogue. She'd unfold him. This time, he wouldn't argue when she insisted he go to the infirmary.

But, rest first. He had to rest first.

The fire that had been smoldering at the back of his skull since Jean locked away his powers ignited. He felt the heat rush through his brain, straight out his eyes. He barely squeezed his lids closed in time. His power was back.

Scott imagined he'd be happy about that, when he had the stamina.

-----

_Phoenix!_ Jean called. The Eater was dazed after the explosion of power that destroyed Charles. For this moment, at least, she and her sister were free.

_I am here,_ came a weak, fading reply.

_What have you done?_

_No body. No life to take over. Saved the world. It's the choice he would have made._

And then Phoenix sank into oblivion again, leaving Jean alone with their waking monster.


	9. Chapter 9

Note: shorter this time. I divide chapters where I feel there is logical break in the story rather than by size, so there will continue to be variety in the length of chapters. We're back with Rogue for a while now.

Thanks for the continued comments. I hope the story continues to please.

* * *

Chapter Nine

_Fantasies are never real._ That thought nagged Marie as she and Peter headed upstairs. Whatever she might imagine about Scott, he would always be her hard-assed team leader, never her fantasy lover. All this touching and closeness might be twisting her into knots, but for him it was just a somewhat embarrassing necessity. She needed to remember that.

"What happened here?" Peter had rounded the corner first. He stopped so abruptly Marie almost ran into him. She peeked around his body. Someone had trashed the hallway all the way from the stairs to Scott's room. Two maids were already cleaning up the mess.

"Someone is going to get serious detention for this," the older of the maids grumbled, seemingly oblivious to Marie and Peter's presence. The younger one silently collected shards of broken ceramic from the carpeting.

"A student did this?" Rogue asked, hoping all this destruction was the result of a temper fit.

The older maid startled and looked up. Then she scowled. "There's been a lot of stress around the school these days. You the kids who are going to clean out Mr. Summer's room? We thought it was going to be done yesterday."

"Yes," Peter answered as he pushed ahead through the debris. The maids didn't try to stop them from entering the room. Marie agreed about the stress. A student might have lost control and trashed the hallway. She hoped that was all the mess in the hallway meant. Still, she would feel a lot better about things once she'd assured herself Scott was all right.

The fact she didn't see Scott as soon as she entered his room didn't distress her. She'd known he would fold again before she returned. But, when she ran her hands over the mattress and he didn't reappear, her heart began to race. He'd promised he would stay right where she could find him. If he'd left, he would have a good reason.

She called his name, then moved rapidly through the room, searching. On the first pass, she became slightly panicked. The sensation grew as she made a second circuit. "Peter, I can't find him."

"Rogue." He sounded patient and tired. That tone only added to her distress.

"I know you can't help me look, but maybe you can at least help me think where he might have gone. Why would he have left the room when he said he'd stay?" She couldn't stop skimming the air with her hands, first at waist level, then lower in case he'd fallen. He'd have to be unconscious, or worse, if he hadn't heard her call.

"Rogue stop."

Marie looked up at Peter. He stood, shoulders slumped, arms folded tight across his broad chest. That he'd been humoring her by coming up here was evident on his patient, reluctant face. Marie didn't need to be a telepath to read everything he felt in his stance and expression. He hadn't been looking forward to this moment of confrontation, but had been sure it would come, and being Peter, he hadn't shied from what he saw as a friend's duty to pull her out of delusion. "Mr. Summers isn't here, Rogue."

"Well, I can see that. I already said we need to figure out where he went." _Please agree,_ she pleaded silently._ Please don't insist I'm lying, or confused, or insane._

"Probably he never was."

_Probably, he said probably._ Her stomach wouldn't lose that sinking sensation, though.

"He was. And I can prove it," she countered. There had to be some proof around here. Scott had been solid and real for at least half an hour. He'd taken clothes from the dresser. But, how could she prove that when she didn't know an exact inventory of his clothing? Her gaze fell on the stack of clothes she'd folded earlier and set on the corner of the bed. "See those shirts? They were on the floor earlier and I picked them up and folded them."

"Mr. Summers threw clothes on the floor?" Peter pointed at the chest of drawers across the room. "The man stacked loose change. In order. By coin size."

"He's been depressed recently," Marie muttered, but she could see how in substantial that argument was. She continued to scramble for proof. "Okay, if I wasn't here, how do I know he had a pistol in his nightstand? Go ahead and look. I haven't gone near that drawer, so how could I know if I wasn't here earlier?"

Peter did open the nightstand drawer and look in. "Proves nothing."

"It proves I was here."

"I never said you were not here, only that Mr. Summers wasn't," Peter pointed out. Kitty's indignant outrage and Bobby's quiet disappointment had been easier to take than Peter's patient logic. He was right, again. Her being in the room wasn't the same as Scott being here.

Or was it? "Wait. Think about that. If Scott wasn't with me, how did I get into the room in the first place? I'm not coded for entry into his bedroom, after all."

"Door wasn't locked."

This wasn't happening. Not again. There had to be proof. "What do you mean it wasn't locked?"

"The professor asked Bobby and I to pack Mr. Summers' things. He took the coding off the door lock yesterday. Anyone could enter."

"This is ridiculous. Why would the professor pick now to clean out his room? There won't be new students, or teachers, for a month."

"I don't know. Bobby thought is was about Alkali Lake."

Scott's supposed death and Dr. Grey's return, he meant. Marie let Peter's information sink in. Scott had put his hand on the panel and she'd turned the knob, but she'd paid no attention to whether the lock actually cycled open or not. She'd been too focused on Scott and his injuries.

His injuries -- she went to the trashcan and looked for evidence of the butterfly bandages she'd closed his wounds with. The can was empty, but, in all honesty, she couldn't remember if she'd thrown the bandage wrappers away or just tossed them on the floor where they could have landed anywhere. Or the maids could have been in here to clean the evidence away. Another dead-end.

Marie set the can back down then wandered to the bed. The whole room felt ordinary now. A bit dusty, perhaps, but not at all threatening. Whatever danger had made her so skittish had evaporated along with the evidence of Scott's presence. As each scrap of proof turned to dust her belief in Scott's existence crumbled. She sank down onto the edge of the bed.

Her self-assurance faded as well. She could want a love that helped her be the best she could be. She could want to be more than the girl whose touch killed. But, wanting wasn't having. And who was she to have such grand thoughts anyway. Her mother used to say that dreaming was no way to make a life. Was that all she'd been doing today -- dreaming a life she wanted to avoid the one she really had?

Marie clenched her fists. She wouldn't give up that easily. "I'm not crazy, Peter."

"I know," he said.

That surprised her. "What then?"

"Manipulated maybe." He was frowning. His shoulders hunched deeply in his reluctant-to-say-what-I-think stance. "The school's been strange. The professor seemed harried. Bobby and I decided not to clear the room right away, in case he changed his mind."

"So you think something is wrong with the professor?" Marie knew she'd need to coax him. That last speech was a lot of words for Peter. He had to be growing tired of talking.

"The professor. Ms. Munroe. Everyone."

Marie wanted to cling to her version of events -- Scott was real and only she could help him. She could save someone important. And maybe fall in love? Yeah, right. Peter's explanation made a lot more sense. Something or someone was manipulating everyone at the school, herself included. "So, you think something made me see Scott?"

Peter blinked at her use of the familiar name, but nodded. "Could be illusion."

Illusion. The word sounded slippery and invasive. She liked the thought of being crazy better than the idea that someone knew about her secret longings, her fantasies and frustrations, well enough to use them against her. The idea made her feel invaded in a way she didn't know she could. And yet, it was unavoidable.

Scott was gone. There was no evidence of his time with her in the room. He wasn't inside her head like every other person she'd touched since her power manifested. He was only the ghost memory of hands on her face, or skin beneath her cheek. Illusion. Manipulation. She pressed her lips tight and thought about throwing up.

"Sorry," Peter offered quietly. "I wish he were real. We could use him."

"Against whatever is doing this to the school?"

He gave another quick nod.

"The Eater." The name popped out the instant she thought of it. "Peter, maybe it's not illusion. Maybe it's all what Scott said. He told me there's this thing called The Eater of Souls. It attacked Dr Grey somehow and he's worried it will do things to the people at the school if he doesn't stop it. It tried to make him kill himself."

"There's not Eater of Souls." Peter sounded absolutely sure.

But, Marie wasn't ready to surrender her answer on his confidence alone. She felt she was fighting for all her dreams. "How can you know that? The Eater of Souls could explain what's so weird about the professor and the others. It could be the danger I sensed in the room when Scott was here."

"You made it up."

"Excuse me?" She was on her feet now, toe to toe with the much taller Peter before she thought. And yet, staring at him, all the outrage just drained out of her. It might have been the edge of pity in his voice, or the real fear that she was grasping at anything to avoid losing the answer she wanted so desperately to believe. But, she just couldn't fight him with gusto.

She continued with less bravado. "I'm not exactly creative, Peter, and The Eater of Souls is a pretty strange name to make up."

"Which is why you, or whatever is messing with you, borrowed the name from Ms. Munroe's mythology class."

Marie could only stare at him. _Mythology class?_

Peter sighed. "Senior year, final term. Egyptian mythology. The Eater of Souls is a monster that devours the souls of the evil dead. It really freaked you, Rogue."

She did remember then. Ammit, The Eater of Souls, had given her more than one nightmare. The whole Egyptian concept of death as a journey through a dangerous world where monsters could devour you terrified her. She wanted to believe her mother -- when you died angels came to walk you into heaven where you'd always be safe. Marie had put the idea of soul-eating monsters all totally out of her mind as soon as the class was over. But, those fears could have been lurking in her subconscious, available to whatever real danger wanted to use her now.

She curled her arms around her body and stepped away from Peter. The thing Scott described did sound eerily like the Egyptian myth. He'd said the Eater took a soul at death. It dwelt in a near-but-not-near folded space, just waiting for someone to die. Marie shivered.

"So, Scott's gone, or dead?" she said to make herself hear the words. Her dreams were dying, leaving just the girl whose touch kills. She thought of one more possible proof, and almost didn't say it. "But, you know, he took a shower while he was real, if he was real."

"I can check." Peter entered the bathroom. Sweet patient Peter, always willing to give you one more chance. Marie knew the outcome before she heard him call out, "The shower's dry."

"Is there a towel? He could have wiped it down," she shouted back, more out of stubbornness than real hope. Scott stacked coins and all. He would clean his shower. But, she didn't have any heart left for the argument. It was time to accept the inevitable. If Scott had been there, he was gone and she would never find him again.

"Hamper's empty." Peter reappeared from the bathroom. "I guess the maids could have cleared it."

More likely, the towel, like Scott, had never been there at all. "If they did, do you think they'd even remember what with all the mess outside?"

He reappeared in the bathroom door. "No."

The whole of it just hurt. Marie wasn't sure why. Disappointment, certainly, was part of the pain. And embarrassment. But, mostly it just felt like loss. She really wanted to cry, just not in front of Peter.

"Peter!" Bobby's voice sounded in the hallway. "Rogue?"

"Here," Peter called. He went to the door and looked out.

A moment later, Bobby stood in the doorway, panting. "I've been searching for the two of you. What the hell are you doing in here?"

"Rogue thought she saw something." Peter was covering for her, and Marie could only smile at the small kindness. She swallowed and tried to wipe her eyes quickly enough that Bobby wouldn't see.

"What's up, Bobby?"

"The professor is dead."

"What?" She and Peter chorused. That dread feeling returned to the pit of her stomach, but this time it had nothing to do with Scott.

Bobby ran both hands through his hair. "He died a few minutes ago."

_This cannot be happening._ "How do you know?"

"Are you kidding me? Every telepath in the school just felt it." Bobby's eyes were wide. He seemed to be beating down the same panic Marie fought. What would they do without the professor?

"Pete, you, me, Kitty, and Rogue are the only X-men around. We have to get the rest of the kids calmed down." Bobby seemed to add her almost as an afterthought, Marie noted. But, she was already too numb to care.


	10. Chapter 10

Note: This is what I call the 'grief' chapter. Sometimes stories just require reflective and sad parts, but I've tried to keep it from being too static.

I'm so glad people are sticking with the story even though it's getting long. I think I'm at close to the half-way point here, but I haven't written it all yet, so can't be sure. As always, hope you enjoy it (if 'enjoy' is the right word here).

* * *

Chapter Ten

The professor was dead.

The whole school had been shocked into silence, Marie included. They all sat on the couches in the downstairs lounge staring at each other, or at the walls. No one played the foosball game, or watched the televisions. No one so much as talked. Yet the words, _Professor Xavier is dead_, rang through the hallways. Marie didn't know if that was the silent wail of the telepaths, or just some ghost of hope crying in death.

Logan and Storm had returned an hour earlier, both distant and shaken. Neither had put in an appearance downstairs yet. So comfort was still left to the rest of the so-called team. Peter sat at the table drawing cartoons for a small knot of children, but he couldn't bring as many smiles as usual. Bobby had given up trying to be inspiring. He now slumped on the sofa opposite Marie. When lectures on the scientific probability of an afterlife failed to raise anyone's spirits, Kitty had retreated to the window seat. She perched there now, a silhouette against the sunset.

Marie wore her long gloves and a long sleeved shirt so that she could at least hug the younger children. The little boy with horns, Franklin she thought his name was, now lay curled across her lap. His weight felt foreign against her thighs, but she couldn't make herself push the unwanted burden away. Instead, she stroked his hair as he slept.

Scott hadn't returned to take charge. After Peter's arguments, after her own realizations, Marie supposed she shouldn't have expected him to show up. But, she had. The professor was dead. They needed leadership, and if Scott were anywhere around the school he would have to know that, right? If he were real, he would have appeared. The conclusions were painfully obvious. Either he wasn't real, or he didn't care about them. Either way, the person she'd thought she'd found was a lie.

She let her gaze glide over the people in the room. Some openly sobbed. Some simply stared. Marie wondered if their misery was as selfish as her own. Were they mourning the professor, or worrying that the school would close? When she looked at Bobby, she wondered if losing a mentor, or failing in his first attempt at leadership, made him scowl.

Maybe if she knew they were all feeling a personal, selfish hurt she could have let her own tears fall. But, what if they were all suffering noble grief? What if she alone was incapable of feeling anything but self-pity?

_I don't want to be here, _she thought. _I don't want to be part of this band of would-be heroes anymore._ Heroism was a lie, at least for her. She couldn't help anyone, save anyone.

Still, she couldn't make herself go upstairs alone. None of the students seemed willing to leave and she didn't want to be the only one running off. They all needed each other, now more than ever. That's why none of them had wandered off to their own rooms. They sat in misery together, though probably none of them wanted to be here, she realized. They just couldn't think where else to go.

Marie could. If it weren't for the curse of her power, she could go home.

-----

_I'm going to lose them all_, Ororo thought as she watched the gawky fifteen-year-old Emil pace out the area where he would grow Charles' monument. The sky overhead was gray today -- a self-indulgence to match her mood. Tomorrow she would make sure the day was bright, for Charles.

_And after that?_ Ororo hugged herself. She didn't know what to do after the funeral. Half the students had already called parents about going home. Hank was pushing her to close the school quickly. And Logan … Logan simply prowled, restless, as if he couldn't wait to run.

He was the only other fully adult member of the team left and he was thinking about abandoning them. Ororo knew it.

"You're sure you want that obelisk thing?" Emil called. He squatted over the pile of stones he'd placed on the grass.

"Yes. It's dignified," Ororo told the boy.

He frowned but obediently stretched his hand over the pile of rock. The stones shook, then began to stretch upward to form the monument.

"It's kind of stodgy, don't you think?" Logan asked from behind her.

Ororo turned slowly, pleased she'd managed not to leap in surprise. "Dignified."

"I guess it fits the professor." Which wasn't exactly a retraction of stodgy. He wasn't smoking, but he did have a cigar in his fingers that he kept spinning. "You're not making one for Scott, I see."

"The funeral tomorrow is for Charles." Later, they'd do something small and private for Scott, she supposed. She felt a small stab of guilt at her desire to dismiss the whole idea, but shook it off. Scott had abandoned them after all, long before dying in a pointless attempt to save Jean. She had a right to be angry with him.

"So, you think he's still alive too."

"Maybe," she allowed. Honestly, she didn't know what to think about the strange communication glitch in the jet that registered Scott's identification code, or Logan's story of seeing Scott outside the hanger. Or the things the children said about Rogue seeing him in the kitchen for that matter. She didn't want to think about any of it now. There were more pressing matters to worry about.

The monument's basic shape complete, Emil concentrated on the bronze plate emerging in the granite face. The boy was such a fine artist, an example of all the Xavier school could accomplish. In his first attempt to attend a prestigious summer art program, Emil had been refused. The review committee had actually insisted art created with the mind alone was not real art. Ororo frowned at the memory.

That same program had just written an apology last month and offered Emil a full scholarship to next year's session. Ororo sensed, Hank McCoy's hand in that, but mostly it was Charles endlessly and patiently arguing for a more reasonable view that opened their minds.

_Winds change_. Charles had mentioned that very fact to her only a few days ago and for the first time she'd sense he didn't mean toward hope. _You had no idea how much, or how quickly, Charles, but you knew it would get bad._

She thought about that conversation. At that moment, Charles' greatest concern was replacing Scott as his successor. Now, he was dead. Right now, the art world coveted Emil's gift where last year they deplored it. The government had rushed this damn cure to the public as soon as they could. Would the next change be that Emil's beautiful talent ended on the point of a needle? Ororo couldn't let that happen. She didn't know how to stop it.

"We need to find him," Logan said.

"Who?" She'd forgotten the conversation.

His dramatic brows arched. "Scott. If he's around the school, we have to find him."

"Scott was gone before he left, Logan. He was a shell. Even the professor accepted that." Scott had dumped his responsibilities in her lap. He'd always put Jean first, just like Logan would if given half the chance.

"I still think he's trying to help now. We should find him." Logan insisted. "We also need to get Jean back from Magneto."

Ororo knew Jean would be his real focus. Just like Scott. Only she couldn't let Logan go the same way. He was the only help she had left. Hank didn't count. He might say he was coming back to the school, but he'd return to government soon enough. Logan had to stay.

"She chose Magneto, Logan! And, seeing what she did as she left here, I think the farther away she stays the better. We have bigger things to think about now. We need everyone together."

"So find Scott."

_Stubborn man._ "I don't have time."

"You have time to stand around while that kid sprouts grave markers. You're right, Storm. We do have bigger things to think about. So, why are you hiring florists when Magneto is out there, with Jean, and we don't know what's happened to Scott or what danger he might have been trying to warn us about?

"The students need to mourn. We all do." _I'm doing what I know how to do._

"Keep your mourning. I need to figure out what the hell is going on," Logan finally lit his cigar, drew in a heavy lungful of smoke and then blew it out. "That's what you should be concentrating on too."

Ororo pressed her fingers to her forehead. Why couldn't he see past Jean? "The students need direction. This monstrous cure is tearing everything apart. How many will even be back here in the fall? Can we stay open without Charles? And we have to think about what Magneto is doing and how we'll stop him when it's only me, the kids, and you. Assuming that there's a you in that"

Logan glared at her. "Scott was trying to tell me something. You can't even consider the possibility that something is important to all those big concerns you have?"

"And he could be a figment of your imagination, or something Jean put into your head." _But, Rogue saw him too_. Ororo was glad she hadn't spoken that last thought aloud.

If she told Logan about Rogue's supposed encounter with Scott it would send him off to harass the girl. Rogue might be the weakest member of the team, but she was still part of it. And she was on the verge of running away already. What would a barrage of questions from the domineering Wolverine do to her? Ororo couldn't risk it. She could lose them both.

In a day or two, after the funeral, after they'd made some decisions about the school, she'd talk to both Logan and Rogue. They could clear up this confusion regarding Scott then. The most important thing now was to not lose more.

-----

Logan sliced his way through the dark woods behind the mansion, turning several shadowed saplings into firewood with each swing of his arms. "Damn it, dick-head," he snarled. "I never thought I'd be this eager to have your tight ass back in command."

Storm had had her funeral this afternoon, but she still refused to mobilize. Logan understood mourning. He missed the professor too. But what kind of honor were they doing Charles' memory by crying when they should be fighting to save what was left of his dream?

Storm wouldn't like it, but Logan had already decided if he couldn't find Scott tonight, he going to have to take over the team. They couldn't put off finding Magneto and Jean. Every moment that son of a bitch had to manipulate her the world took another step closer to annihilation.

Both he and Storm had seen what Jean's power could do. How could Storm not accept that finding Jean should be their first priority?

It was past nine and the night scents were rising. Logan paused and breathed them in, searching the new possibilities. Still nothing. This assault was getting Logan nowhere but closer to the back gate. If Scott were out here, the noise and violence wasn't catching his attention as it should. Logan sheathed his claws.

He couldn't give up. Whether apparition or reality, Scott could find Jean. Storm had told him about the link the couple shared. At the time, the warning had been Storm's way of saying, 'you never had a chance with her.'

That thought made him scowl. He rejected the stab of regret. This wasn't about love, or the loss of it. It was about fixing this mess they were all in. At least that's what he wanted to believe. He was honest with himself enough to admit saving the world might not be his only motivation.

"Doesn't matter. Doesn't change what needs doing." That link, if they still shared it, was his last, best hope. He couldn't give up searching.

Logan entered the house and started over in the lower corridors. Maintenance had cleared the shattered infirmary door, but not begun construction on a new one. The air here smelled, as it always did, of too much processing. Storm had been down today, but otherwise, Logan only sensed the workmen. At the end of the hall, the door to Cerebro remained open a sliver. It hadn't closed right since the attack on the school over a year before. The staleness inside the old, vacant hollow leaked out through the crack.

Would have been nice if he could use that device to search for Scott, or Jean. But, the machine had yet to be repaired after Stryker's invasion. With the professor gone, it probably never would be.

Upstairs, the scents became almost too confused for him to follow until he reached the level where he and the other staff slept. Outside Scott's door Logan caught his first clue. He pushed the door open and prowled inside.

Though her lingering presence was submerged, he still recognized Jean, and for a moment, she was all he could focus on. So many unfulfilled wishes lingered here, so many disappointed dreams. Then, he forced himself sort the other odors in the room. Scott had been here not two days before, and it was his scent that had pulled Logan into the room. If he'd needed proof, it was here. He hadn't been imagining things when he saw Scott outside the hanger.

Rogue had been here too, at roughly the same time. No, later. Her scent was slightly stronger than Scott's. Peter's too. There was the vague trace of two females Logan associated more with cleaning solutions than faces. Maids, he supposed. And behind all that hid a musky hint of sexual desire.

Logan backed out of the room. Whatever had happened here was days old, and he really didn't need the distraction of why Rogue would be sneaking off to a supposedly vacant room with a boy, and not the one everyone would suspect. Love triangles were not Logan's concern. Not those he'd been involved in, nor those he wasn't.

He tried to follow Scott's trail, but lost it in the corridor. Frustrated, Logan headed back down to the main floor and started the search again, in the lounge. He couldn't give up, especially now that he knew he was right. The man had to be somewhere. Besides, Logan didn't have another idea for finding Jean.

Storm had sent the kids to their rooms hours ago, so he could search in silence now. But, the quiet wasn't helping the way it should. Nothing made sense to him. Evidence appeared and then vanished, as if his quarry could evaporate. Logan was moving rapidly from frustrated to angry. _Come on, you bastard. You were damn eager to talk before. Why won't you do it now?_

Footsteps outside snagged his attention. Not Scott, the sound was too light. He stepped out in time to catch Rogue, satchel in hand, heading for the door. Once he saw her expression, he knew couldn't very ignore her. "You need a lift, Kid?"

"No."

If he hadn't known what she was doing before, he did as soon as he heard that curt reply. Damn. He really didn't need this tonight. "Where you going?"

She stopped and studied him. Despite the season, she wore a long coat, gloves, a scarf around her neck -- her protective gear. And Logan regretted being so busy over the past week. He should have known this cure thing would get to her. He should have been there to talk to her before this. They were supposed to be friends. He felt responsible for her.

"You don't know what it's like to be afraid of your powers, to be afraid to get close to anyone."

He thought about Jean and wanting to be close to her, and of the fear he had of his own nightmares. "Yeah, I do."

She looked so sad, so alone. What had happened with Peter up in that room? Or with Bobby? He had a sudden desire to squeeze the neck of whoever had hurt her. But, that wouldn't fix things for Rogue.

"I want to be able to touch people, Logan. A hug. A handshake." She paused before getting to what he suspected was the real point. "A kiss."

"I hope you aren't doing this for some boy."

-----

_For some boy?_

Marie thought about that. Logan must have assumed she meant Bobby when she mentioned kissing, but she didn't. Bobby wasn't her concern anymore. She'd seen him out on the fountain skating with Kitty and her heart has just sort of let him go. It was relief, really. Not joy. Certainly not pain. Just relief.

She doubted she could explain that to Logan.

"Look, you want to go, then go," he continued.

That surprised her, maybe disappointed her a bit. She knew she'd made the right decision. Staying here would be unbearable. Every creak in the old mansion, every voice in the hallways, reminded her of dreams and promises. Still, it would have been nice to have someone argue with her about going.

"Shouldn't you be telling me to stay? To go upstairs and unpack?"

"I'm not your father. I'm your friend." Logan sounded gruff, maybe even a little eager to be rid of her so he could get back to whatever he was doing.

That dismissal only solidified her resolve. If even Logan didn't want her to stay, she had to be right to leave. Her last doubts drained away.

"Think about what I said, Rogue," he added as he turned away.

"Marie," she corrected. She would be Marie for good now, ordinary, unimportant Marie.

"Marie." His voice sounded softer. Then he walked away, leaving her standing alone with her decision and her satchel. _It's not for a boy,_ she thought. _It's for me. It's so I can be me_.

Marie closed the door behind her. She walked down the long run of stone steps to the drive, then out to the street to meet the cab she'd called. She never expected to see Xavier's mansion again.

* * *

Note: I know everyone is still waiting to hear about what's happened to Scott. I haven't forgotten him. I promise. 


	11. Chapter 11

Note: I hope everyone continues to enjoy the story. I want to thank everyone who reviewed so far. It means a lot.

I'm posting this one, but likely will have a week gap before I get 12 up. First, next week in Thanksgiving. Second, I have a terrible cold and haven't been able to write for several days. So, it'll probably be 2 weeks before the next one goes up. Thanks for understanding. I do know where the story is going, so I will get 12 up as soon as I feel better.

* * *

Chapter Eleven

Morning fog enclosed the smells of Magneto's camp -- pine resin mixed with the acid of campfires and the raw, too-personal stench of poor sanitation. Jean made no effort to escape the melange. She stood on a hill above the camp, afraid if she moved to far or too fast she might end this moment of freedom.

The Eater and Phoenix both slept after the ordeal in her parents' home. So, Jean was alone in her body and being very quiet about it. She felt almost normal with all the illusions of life and health in place. If she didn't know better, she would think she could simply walk out of this insanity, find a phone, call Scott for a ride home….

The thought snagged her joy like a thorn. There was no home anymore. Charles was dead. Scott too, maybe. And when The Eater completed its plans for Magneto's army, the rest of her friends would also die.

Army? She looked out over the sea of recruits. These weren't soldiers. There were some thugs among the horde, a few gang members, but many were no more than runaway teens full glory dreams and lacking sense. Fodder is what they were. Magneto cared no more for them than he'd cared for Rogue's life when he locked her in his infernal contraption in the Statue of Liberty.

Her pulse raced, remembering that fight. She'd been so afraid in those moments because she had so much to lose -- a life, a purpose, a love. She'd been just Jean and happy. Now she was a crowded, dead being. The only pleasure she could find was in being no longer afraid. Of anything.

"Do you remember when we first met?" Magneto said behind her shoulder. "You know what I saw when I looked at you? I saw the next stage in evolution. What Charles and I dreamt of finding."

_You saw fodder, you old liar_, Jean thought. _You think I'll win your war for you, make you dictator of the world._

"I thought to myself why should Charles want to turn this goddess into a mortal?"

_Goddess?_ She supposed she was that now, a goddess of death. That's what she would bring to all those people gathering among the pines. They weren't truly Magneto's fodder. They were hers, or rather The Eaters.

A lump lodged in her throat. Regret tasted foul. Jean didn't want to be a goddess. She didn't want to be the destroyer or the savior of the world. All she wanted was to be what she'd been before Liberty Island. A doctor. A woman. A lover. A friend.

_You'll never understand, Lensherr. Being mortal is a gift. _But, those people milling among the multi-colored tents would understand, all too soon, the pain of The Eater's godhead.

An oddly squared off pistol floated into her field of vision. "I can manipulate the metal in this," Lensherr was saying, "But you can do anything. Anything you can think of."

The awe in his voice grated. Jean couldn't do anything. She couldn't save Charles. She couldn't save Scott -- and the uncertainty of his fate stabbed deeper than the other losses. Rogue or no Rogue, Jean still loved him.

But Magneto couldn't understand that either. He couldn't comprehend why, if she had the choice, she would have returned to the mansion just to know what happened to someone she loved, even if the people there hated her for what happened to Charles. Lensherr was such a fool.

Suddenly, all she could think about what how gloating he'd been in the Statue of Liberty. _You were so sure of yourself, so sanctimonious and aggrandizing. Logan was right. You are full of shit._ The profanity felt good, powerful. Jean risked reaching down into the pool of sleeping Phoenix's power and used telekinesis to separate the gun, then the case containing the cure darts.

It would be so easy to end Lensherr's belief in his own divinity. It would only take a tiny thought. She wanted to do it.

"Jean?" Was that panic in his voice? She liked the thought that it was. "Enough. Enough!"

Jean closed her eyes. She couldn't do it. Whatever monster lived in her, it was not her. She was still a doctor, sworn to heal not hurt. And mutation was not a disease. _Weak,_ a deep, evil voice inside her said. But, the voice was wrong. It was strength, not weakness, to remain herself when the titans inside her grappled to consume her.

She turned toward Magneto. "You sound just like him."

"Jean, he wanted to hold you back."

He would think she meant Charles. "What do you want?"

_Just one time tell the truth_.

"I want you to be what you are, as nature intended."

_And what would I be if you'd had your way from the beginning? Would I have had any of the happiness that touched my life?_ She saw Christmases at the mansion, and late nights of tea and silly secrets with Ororo. She remembered arms that belonged to a man who didn't care if her power was weak or strong, and the knowledge she was loved. The memories were like scraps of tissue, fragile and fleeting. But, even lost they were better than anything Magneto could have given her.

"That cure is meant for all of us. If we want freedom, we must fight for it. And the fight begins now." On that speech Magneto strode away. He thought he'd made a significant point.

He had, though not the one he intended. She didn't fear the cure. Jean wished she had the strength to pick up one of those darts and drive it into her own arm. At least that would deprive The Eater of power. But, she knew the monster would never allow her to do that. It rested, but it was ever ready to steal back control of their body.

Still, Lensherr was right. If she wanted freedom for her friends, for those innocent fools below in the forest, she had to fight for it. She would have to fight subtly, however. She couldn't take the cure dart, but she could access Phoenix's power. She'd proven that when she deconstructed the weapon. With that power she could call for help.

Phoenix was the key. She's torn control from The Eater once. She could do it again, if she would revive. Only one person could wake the princess.

Jean drew power slowly, but strongly. When she had enough to bridge the miles to Westchester, she sent out a psychic call. _Logan!_

-----

It was the noon sun warming his face that woke Scott. His T-shirt was damp and gritty. The fabric ground against his skin when he moved. When he stood, his damp jeans dragged on his waist as if they weighed ten extra pounds and the shirt sagged as well. He felt his surroundings with his hands, slowly, testing. The familiar pressure behind his eyelids warned him not to open his eyes.

Yet, how much damage would his optic blasts do in this folded state? It was possible he could do something, now, that he never thought he would ever do again -- open his eyes on the world and simply look.

Scott trusted his logic, but he still turned his face down toward the ground before opening his eyes fully. A cricket darted, its body pressing heavily than it should have, over his toes and continued undamaged on its way. The blasts didn't so much as flatten the grass at his feet.

As strange an adjustment as living folded had been, this was stranger. He'd grown accustomed to the blasts deflecting back against his eyes when he looked at things. To not feel that slight discomfort, while at the same time sensing the power flow, unsettled him. He caught himself wanting to shield his gaze with his hands. He hesitated before opening his eyes every time he blinked.

Scott forced himself to accept the sensation. He lifted his head slowly and stared out at the grounds. His he saw the full oaks, bathed in afternoon sun, and the grass, and the hazy forests beyond, all filtered through the shimmer of his blasts. What struck him more than the freedom was his relief over the power's return. Without it, he'd felt less than whole, less himself.

He noticed the shriveled husk of The Eater's limb lying in the grass nearby. The fang rested next to the limb where he'd dropped it after pulling it from his arm. Instinctively, he rubbed the spot where the point had pierced his skin. The flesh was whole and smooth. He studied the vanished wound. No trace remained.

Shoving a hand under his T-shirt, he felt his ribs. The gashes from Logan's claws had healed to thin scars he might not have felt if he weren't searching for them. He'd already figured out that the poison had restored his power, but had it healed him as well.

He thought back on what Jean had told him about The Eater of Souls. Its young latched on to a dying soul and then controlled the body. But, that meant the body couldn't actually die. Scott stared at the fang. Vicious as it looked, its purpose had not been to poison. Whatever the fang had injected into his body restored him to full health and repaired recent wounds.

The growl of an engine caught Scott's attention. He knew that particular rhythm instantly. The team must have made it back from the confrontation with Jean, but Logan was preparing to leave again. There was no time to speculate as to why. He had to catch Logan before the gate.

Scott rushed across the lawn, faster than he'd run in a while. Lack of mass shouldn't give him that sort of assist, so it had to be something else. Simple adrenaline maybe. He jumped the hedge and reached the paving right beside the speeding motorcycle. The turbulence off the frame knocked him back into the shrubs. And all Scott could do was stare at Logan's back as he speeded away.

"Logan!" he shouted, though he knew it was useless.

Except, the bike slowed. It stopped. The man on it pivoted and looked behind him, hand rubbing the back of his neck. Then, Logan kicked the stand down and got off the bike. He started to walk back down the drive. "You there? You really there?"

"I'm here," Scott said. But, Logan didn't seem to hear that. He stopped barely an arm's length from Scott and then reached out.

Scott stood his ground, though he caught himself wanting to duck away from that hand. Logan might not be trying to punch him, but Scott remembered the crushing feel of his hands pushing downward. He had no desire to go another few rounds with Wolverine.

Logan merely passed his hand in front of Scott's face. It was the beams. He'd felt the beams. "You're here, aren't you? Right here. I can feel the pressure from your eyes."

"Yes." Scott said. And then bellowed, "Yes!"

Logan's eyes widened. That, he'd heard. "What the hell happened to you?"

He couldn't possibly shout out the whole answer. He had to keep this short or he'd lose his voice too fast. "Jean!"

A wince from Logan, that couldn't mean good things. The man stretched out a hand again and this time tapped Scott's shoulder with his fingers. His nostrils flared. "You're wet."

"Dew, I think," Scott muttered. His shirt and jeans had already dried considerably in the sun, though they still felt scratchy from imbedded dirt. There was no time for that. He shouted, "What happened to Jean?"

"Jean left with Magneto. She's calling me and I've got to go while I can still find her."

Why the hell would Jean -- no, not Jean, The Eater had chosen to follow Magneto. And whatever that meant it would be worse even than having the thing at the school. "She's not what you think, Logan. She's … possessed I guess is the best word for it."

"She killed the professor." Logan continued to talk right over him. He seemed to only be picking up a few words even when Scott screamed. Which meant --

"She what?" Scott's brain caught up with the import of Logan's too calm statement. Charles was dead. He meant dead, not missing or injured or some other state of danger. Dead. Gone. His gut knotted and a wash of icy sorrow cascaded down his spine. Good God. Logan meant dead.

He couldn't move. He couldn't think. No, he had to think. Logan was going to leave in a moment, if he didn't do something. This was not the time for grief. The Eater was out there, with Magneto. He had to make his mind function.

"We're in trouble here, Scott," Logan told him. "I haven't got time to hang around and explain things, but Ororo can't handle it. She might manage the school all right, but the team needs you. Magneto is planning something big about this cure, I'm sure of it. And we've got to do something."

The team needed him. Logan could get Jean. He seemed to know where she was, but Scott needed to handle the team. He forced himself to concentrate on that problem. Folded he couldn't do much good. He had to find -- "Rogue!"

"That is weird," Logan muttered. "And I can almost see you, like you're a haze of dust or something. What are you, a ghost?"

"Rogue!" Scott shouted again.

Logan shook his head. "You want to know about Rogue? She left. Probably should have stopped her, but didn't think I had the right. She went for the cure."

"Cure?" What the hell was he talking about? Scott wished he could grab the man and shake him.

"Take care of the team, however you can. Whatever you are." Logan looked him up and down. Then headed back to the bike, revved the engine, and was gone.

-----

"Rogue, I know you're doing this for me, and I'm sorry for ignoring you. I don't want you cure yourself just to be able to touch me," Bobby rehearsed the speech to himself as he parked the borrowed car about a block and a half from the clinic in White Plains. The streets were insane even though it was only eleven on a weekday. Traffic had slowed to a crawl as soon as he got close to the place. He hoped he wasn't too late. "I'm sorry for paying so much attention to Kitty. I'm sorry for everything. Please still be in line. Please."

He'd never forgive himself if he couldn't stop Rogue. He wasn't sure what he'd do if he couldn't find her. For a moment, he just sat in the driver's seat gripping the steering wheel.

He'd been drawn to Rogue the first time he saw her. Partly, it was her beauty he had to admit. She had an innate sensuality, and the fact she seemed unaware of it only intensified its effect. He loved the heart-shaped bend of her lips. But what he liked best was the way she ducked her head when she first talked to him, as if not quite sure she wanted to meet his eyes. When she did look at him, it felt like she was trusting him with a special secret. And he wanted, from that first meeting of gazes, to be her hero.

Only he'd never quite managed to be a hero for her. Logan saved her from Magneto before Bobby even learned what was happening at the Statue of Liberty. Later, when the mansion was attacked, he'd had his chance. And he'd been too frightened to do anything but run. She'd had to remind him to use his powers. He hasn't stopped John from torching the cop cars even though it was all happening in front of his own parents' house. He hadn't even had the guts to try to fly the jet when they were all trying to escape Alkali Lake. He'd left that to her. _Some hero_.

He noticed his breath frosting the interior of the car. Slowly, he pried his fingers off the wheel, snapping ice crystals that had formed on the leather cover. What was he doing wasting time musing in the car? He could have already missed Rogue.

Around the clinic, the noise was so loud the shouts rattled the thoughts in Bobby's skull. Protestors lined one side of the street. On the other side, a row of cops protected those waiting in line. Even when he found Marie, how was he supposed to get past the police to talk to her? He didn't want to be barricaded into the line and forced to take a cure shot.

Bobby pushed through the edge of the crowd of protestors, searching. He couldn't go home without Rogue. It was his fault she was here.

If only he'd paid more attention to her. She'd been angry after the Danger Room session where he paired with Kitty. To be honest, she'd been angry ever since Kitty joined the team and Bobby took her under his wing. He should have paid attention to his girl being jealous. He'd been such an idiot.

It wasn't as if he preferred Kitty. Bobby liked her well enough, but he didn't want to date her. He just enjoyed how she looked up to him, leaned on him. She made him feel important while with Rogue always seemed to be one step too late. God, he'd been stupid.

"Want the cure so you can go back home to mommy and daddy?"

John's presence surprised Bobby until he thought about it. This protest was probably a good recruiting ground for Magneto and his hangers-on. He would have ignored Pyro's taunt, but John might have seen Rogue enter the clinic.

"I'm looking for someone."

"Oh, I get it. Your girlfriend." John nodded, self-satisfied. "Figures she'd want the cure. She's pathetic."

The jab was intended to get him mad. Bobby knew that. Not for the first time, he thought it would be nice to be Pyro and ignore the consequences of what you chose to do. If he didn't care, maybe he wouldn't feel so guilty about pushing Rogue toward the cure, or about leading Kitty on just to enjoy her adoration. He felt his fist tighten and chill.

The response was immediate -- a handful of fire and a challenge, "Come on, Iceman. Make a move."

He wanted to. He really did. But, he wasn't John. He did feel guilty about Rogue, and Kitty. And he'd feel a lot guiltier if anything happened to the people crowding the street because he was in a mood to fight. Bobby shook his head and turned away.

"Same old Bobby, Still afraid of a fight."

_Lame_, Bobby thought as he turned his attention back to the processing line. Then the clinic exploded.

_Rogue_! Bobby dove across the street toward the burning building only to be grabbed by two policemen.

"Stay back son."

"But, my girlfriend. She could be in there." He struggled helplessly as they pulled him back from the flames. "You don't understand. I can stop the fire."

-----

For a long time after Logan drove off, Scott could only stand in the drive staring at the now closed gates. The sun had heated his shoulders leaving the fabric of his shirt scratchy and stiff. Charles was dead. And Rogue had gone to be cured.

He hadn't paid much attention to the conversations he'd overheard in the hallways about a cure for mutation. He'd been too focused on saving Jean, and on unfolding. It was past time he learned what was really going on in his world.

He entered the mansion and was headed toward the stairs when he heard the news broadcast blaring from inside the lounge. "So long as the cure exists, our war will rage. Your cities will not be safe. Your streets will not be safe. You will not be safe…"

What was Magneto's voice doing on the television? Scott detoured that direction. Most of the students had crowded into the lounge along with Ororo and Hank McCoy. All eyes were focused on the Fox5 newscast and Magneto.

"That's the third time through. Turn it off," McCoy said. Kitty pointed a remote at the screen and ended the threats. Everyone in the room seemed dumbstruck.

"They blew up the White Plains clinic," Peter said at last. "It's aimed at us."

Scott agreed with Peter's assessment. Magneto was warning the X-men to stay out of his plans this time. They couldn't do that, of course. He looked at Ororo, expecting her to take charge, give an order, something. She twitched a bit, as if bothered by a fly. Then she glanced at McCoy.

"Do something," Scott tried shouting at Ororo. But, she didn't have Logan's hearing. It wasn't surprising that she didn't respond, though the way she was fluttering her hand in front of her face he suspected she felt his optic blasts.

Logan was right. They were collapsing. Ororo was stagnant, the kids, leaderless. And Charles was dead. Scott remembered how he'd sworn to take care of them all if Charles died. _He trusted me to be here for them all, to carry one. I promised I would. And I'm failing him._

Kitty fidgeted on the couch. "Bobby's there."

"What?" That got Ororo to move. She knelt beside the girl. "Why would he go to the clinic?"

"To look for Rogue. She left to take the cure. Neither of them are back yet." Kitty had Scott's full attention with that statement. He wanted the television back on. He wanted pictures, details. He wanted to know that people made it out of that clinic alive. He wanted to know what had happened to Rogue.

"No." The static charge around Ororo lifted both her hair and Kitty's. "I can't lose them both. I'm driving to White Plains. Hank, can you watch the children?"

"Kitty and I have the kids covered," Peter volunteered.

Ororo nodded. She looked grim but determined as she stood and headed straight for the door. Hank stepped in her way. "I can accompany you since the children are cared for."

For a moment, Scott thought she might refuse, but she didn't stop McCoy from falling into step beside her.

"You might need me," Hank's tone of his voice suggested he thought they'd find the missing team members dead.

In that instant, Scott decided he'd go with her to White Plains. He might be little help, but he'd be even less use here at the school. He refused to leap to the conclusions Hank did. Somehow, he'd find a way to make sure both of his X-men came back alive.

----

It was mid afternoon by the time Marie's bus reached the clinic. The whole thing would have been over if she'd gone to the one in White Plains, but she still had this silly idea someone from the school might try to stop her. So, she'd ridden farther into the city, and wound up spending the night in an overcrowded bus terminal.

She'd already bought her ticket South, for after the shot, but she hadn't called her parents yet. She knew they'd be happy to hear from her. Well, she was pretty sure they would be. It wasn't like they'd actually thrown her out. She'd run away for fear of hurting them.

Marie imagined her parent's house. The architecture had aspired to glory once. But now the porch creaked and the furniture was all hand-downs that seemed out of place in the once elegant parlors. The ceiling in her room had water marks and one big crack from when dad had tried to repair the roof himself. Like Marie herself, the house wasn't as heroic or beautiful as it wanted to be. Maybe that's why going home felt right.

The bus ground to a halt and the doors hissed open. Marie hurried to be among the first ones out, not because she was eager but because she didn't want to be trapped in by those who were. She looked up at the sky, bracketed as it was by tall buildings and hoped for strength.

This was the right choice. It might even be a happy choice if the fantasy she really wanted hadn't died so very recently.

She managed to move one foot forward, then the other, until she'd found a spot in the line behind a tall man wearing a woolen cap. Soldiers crowded the street and on the far side protested bellowed and screamed. "We don't need a cure."

"Fine," Marie muttered. "Then go home."

The man in the cap chuckled.

"Do you know what the soldiers are doing here?" she asked him.

"Made some noise an hour ago about shutting down, but they're still taking people inside." He shrugged his shoulders and the gesture wasn't quite human. "I guess they can't make up their minds."

"Someone said the doctors are arguing to stay open," a woman farther up the line suggested. "We haven't moved much in the last thirty minutes, though."

"They can't do that, can they? Shut down, I mean." Marie wasn't sure she could work up the nerve to come back again tomorrow if they closed today. She wanted this part of her journey done.

"Honey," the woman called back, "They're the government. They can do anything they want."

Marie folded her arms around herself. She could wait this out. She would not bolt.

The rear of the line moved forward suddenly, pushing a young woman into Marie's back. Both of them leapt at the contact. The young woman yelped as if in pain.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to." How had she hurt the woman? Marie had carefully covered herself from neck to ankles in cloth. They shouldn't have touched flesh to flesh.

"It's not you. It's me," the woman said. "I don't like to touch people."

"Me either." Marie turned to face her, feeling an instant kinship.

"Absorption," the woman guessed. She had delicate features, dark eyes, and wore a remarkably ugly hat. "I know how painful that can be."

"You too? I mean, you have the same problem?"

"Precognition. I read people's futures if I touch them." The woman didn't offer a handshake, but she did smile. "My name is Irene."

"Marie." The wait was going to be unbearable without some conversation, so she added, "Is that really bad? Reading futures, I mean. I'd think a lot of people would like to know what's going to happen."

"They think they would." Irene shivered visibly though it was anything but cold. "But, I get one vision for each person I touch, and they are almost always awful."

Marie wanted to ask if Irene had seen a future for her when they bumped into each other, but she suspected that would be rude. "I guess I can understand that."

From up at the front of the line, they heard angry shouting. Several burly men in lab coats began working their way down the line. The crowd across the street cheered and shook their signs as if in victory.

"They're closing," someone up line said. "Something to do with terrorism."

Marie groaned. Was this fate trying to tell her to go back to Xavier's, that she'd made a mistake? She thought about home again, but the image wavered now.

Tentatively, Irene tapped Marie's arm. "Don't you have anywhere to go?"

"If I go to the only place I have, I won't be coming back." Marie wasn't sure if that was sorrow or relief she heard in her own voice.

"Come with me then. I'm staying at a shelter downtown. The bus will bring us back in the morning."

Marie hesitated. A shelter hardly sounded better than the bus terminal.

Irene studied her. The woman couldn't have been more than twenty-five, yet her eyes looked much older. She must have seen a lot of pain. "Marie, come with me and I'll tell you what I saw."


	12. Chapter 12

Note: Okay, a bit later than I wanted to post this, but it's up now. I suspect posting will be haphazard through the holidays and settle down again after the new year. There's still a ways to go with the story.

Thanks to all for being patient for the next installment and for the comments. I always love to read what you all have to say.

* * *

Chapter Twelve

Scott had a too much time to think on the drive down to White Plains, and thinking was the last thing he wanted. Rogue's plea -- _we need you more than her_ -- joined Logan's challenge that they were all in trouble. Beneath those accusations lay the poisonous truth of his failures. He'd failed the team and the school when he let grief over Jean give The Eater access to his soul. And since then, he'd failed to even notice the rising threats from Magneto and this damned cure. His whole focus had been saving Jean.

In the front seat of the Bentley, Hank and Ororo chatted about present dangers and future fears in that false-friendly way they'd had with each other since Hank left to work in government. The tone grated on Scott's ears almost as much as the pessimism that lurked beneath their words. He knew too well if they gave in to despair the fight was over before it started.

Scott tried staring at the back of Ororo's head. She twitched after a few moments and brushed her hand against her hair as if trying to dislodge a bug, but she didn't connect the tickle with Scott's optic blasts the way Logan had. Trying the same with Hank yielded the same result. After a few miles, he turned to the passing scenery instead.

Green gave way to gray and brown as they approached the city, but Scott wasn't really paying attention to the transition from country to city. Rogue's words -- _We need you_ -- plagued him, and with them the look she'd given him at that moment. In his mind, he replayed the feel of her cheek against his chest, the turning of her head so her hair brushed his skin, and the widening of her eyes as she looked up at him. _We need you._ More than Jean needs you.

_She meant the team._ Like Logan, she'd been warning him of Ororo's indecisiveness and the whole group's lack of direction. She'd been pleading for a leader. Scott pressed his hands against his eyes until he felt the beat of his power against his fingertips.

Familiar, strong, the pulse of the blasts calmed his mind. He'd never been able to explain how he felt about his mutation, not even to Jean, not even to the professor. Everyone expected him to hate it, or fear it. The truth was, he liked it.

The blasts were proof he had control. Even before he came to Xavier's, in those months he when was alone and blind, he'd controlled his life. He hadn't destroyed city blocks, after all. He hadn't killed people. He could have -- by accident, in anger, out of fear, or to warn off danger. But he didn't. He'd always managed to hold true to what he wanted to be despite this explosive, uncontrollable force inside. He'd even managed to break Stryker's conditioning before it was too late, though that had been a struggle.

All he had to remember was to keep fighting until he won a way through. There was a way to beat The Eater, and Magneto, and deal with the cure. Despite his folded state and Ororo's inability to lead without him they could still win. Anything could be conquered with determination

More than a block from the White Plains clinic a police barricade stopped them. Ororo and Hank got out to argue with the police. Scott twisted in the back seat until he found the angle where the doors of the Bentley appeared to come apart. Then, just like he could with the doors at the mansion, he slipped through the cracks and headed toward the clinic on his own. Being invisible had its advantages. The police couldn't stop what they couldn't see.

The oily, clinging stench of the fire, hit him while he was still on the sidewalk. All scents had been dulled since he entered this folded state, but the clinic reeked full force on Scott's plane of existence. The building was an open wound, raw with a silent, palpable pain. It was the throb of psychic distress, a feeling all too familiar to Scott since Jean's death.

That stopped him. Anything could be conquered with determination, except death. Against death there was no victory. He'd known that with Jean, and the realization was what threw him into grief. Now he faced the same hard truth. If Rogue had been in the clinic when it exploded, she was beyond any effort. That thought made his stomach churn.

Scott picked his way carefully over the sparkle of shattered window glass, past mounds that had once been desks, chairs, tables. The general layout of the clinic remained visible despite the chaos. It had been one big room divided into treatment cubicles in the back by rolling screens. The patients had waited in a row of folding chairs to the left. The administrators oversaw everything from desks to the right.

Simple, efficient, but transitory, Scott thought. No one intended this clinic to be open for long. Either they knew all the mutants who wanted cures would arrive in the first few weeks, or there were different administration plans for after the volunteer lines dried up.

He hadn't gone far before he found the first body lying partly hidden beneath a half-melted desk. The few places were the skin was still pink provided the only real hint that the figure had once been living. Otherwise, it looked like a melted doll. Scott knelt closer, fighting his gag reflex. He or she had been a worker. The remnants of a smock and deformed plastic badge made that clear. Not Rogue. He breathed a little easier.

Nearby, rested a young patient. Her body was covered with small horns the size of Scott's thumb. He supposed the desire for beauty brought this girl to the clinic. But why had Rogue chosen this course? What did she think was so wrong with her? He considered the brief time they'd spent together in his room. Rogue had been agitated, and he'd ignored the fact. If he'd been less focused on Jean, if he'd asked her more questions, would she have stayed safe at the mansion? He remembered her words -- _We need you more than we need her._

_We need you._ Had she meant _I need you_? Had he been too absorbed in his own goals -- in Jean -- to notice? He had to force his jaw muscles to relax. His teeth were grinding. _Don't think anymore, just look. Prove she's not here._

Gruesome as the search was, he had to check every body. He had to know. Most were too burned for easy identification, but there were always telltale signs if he studied closely -- a bit of cloth that could have been a coat or scarf, a strand of hair protected from the flames. He knew Rogue's green coat, the long scarf she wore. He suspected the metallic strands in her long hair would leave traces as well. Each corpse was a stranger. Rogue wasn't here.

That realization relieved a good deal of his tension. He squatted amid the debris, covered his face with his hands. The unshielded blasts beat against his palms. She wasn't gone, wasn't lost like Jean. He couldn't look at why that knowledge made him tremble. He simply allowed his body shake loose the unwanted emotions.

Behind him, he heard Ororo's voice as she and Hank entered the building. Scott straightened and had begun brushing fine soot off his trousers when movement startled him. A figure, unnaturally pale against the shadows at the back of the room, crept from behind a ruined screen. It was the girl he'd seen lying dead by the first worker's corpse. The horns lining her arms below ragged T-shirt sleeves shimmered like opal. She stared right at him.

She was dead, wasn't she? He didn't believe in ghosts, but who knew what passed for reality in the plane where he was now trapped? And, beyond that, he didn't know what her mutant powers had been.

"Don't hurt me, demon." Her voice trembled.

She saw him? Scott took a few steps closer, still wary. "I'm not a demon. Just a man."

"Your eyes."

Scott instantly diverted his gaze and narrowed his eyes. "Does it hurt you?"

"No." She still sounded frightened but hadn't run. "I can't feel anymore. But, they aren't human."

"Mutant, like you." He looked at her again. This time she didn't flinch.

"Not like me. Your eyes just glow. You aren't ugly."

"You're not ugly," he said out of habit rather than honesty. The horns distorted the shape of her limbs. Smaller spikes pulled her cheeks so taut that her lips stretched back from her gums. She was ugly, but Scott didn't like that she was so sad about it.

"Don't lie."

"Are you a telepath too?" To be hideous and know every time someone recoiled inwardly would be its own particular hell.

"Don't have to be." She clenched her teeth and looked at him with more courage. "I wasn't supposed to be like this forever. They were supposed to make it go away. But, they were so slow, and now I'm dead and have to go to heaven ugly."

Scott had no idea how to comfort the girl, or whether she even wanted comfort. He could only think how glad he was to not be encountering Rogue in this way. "You know you are dead?"

"Everyone knows when they are dead." She reached out and touched his shoulder. Her hand felt solid enough yet didn't have the extreme weight he'd come to associate with real matter. Like him, she had little or no mass. "You're right. No demon but also not dead. Why are you here?"

He didn't want to ask, didn't want his prior conclusions contradicted. Still, if she had information, he had to know. "I'm looking for someone, a young woman with a metallic white streak in her hair. She would have been wearing a long, green coat."

"Everyone else who died went on. We aren't supposed to stay in this place. I've been fighting the pull because I hoped the ugliness would vanish after all." He rubbed the hard ridges along her arms. "I don't remember anyone like you describe."

"She wasn't here." Scott had to believe that was true. He hadn't found Rogue among the corpses. The dead girl hadn't seen her. "She went somewhere else."

"I hope you find her." She looked ready to say more, but then her eyes focused over Scott's shoulder.

"If Rogue's here we'll not find her alone." Hank McCoy's voice sounded very close. Scott turned to see Hank knelling next to one of the bodies. "We'll have to check the hospitals later."

_Hospitals?_ Scott hadn't thought of injury. He felt as if a fist suddenly squeezed his lungs. _Now. We have to go now._ The source of that panic was another emotion he didn't want to explore.

Ororo stepped closer and put her hands on her hips. "We'd best go get Bobby Drake out of jail then. Do you think you can get the authorities to release him?"

Scott had nearly forgotten Drake was part of this. Of course, they needed to get the Iceman first. He might even have more information for them. Scott watched Ororo and Hank head for the exit. He knew he had to hurry if he was going to keep his ride. But, he couldn't just leave the girl.

He turned back. The horned girl had already vanished.

-----

The Mutant Outreach Shelter -- the place looked as starkly functional as its name. Marie followed Irene into the converted warehouse silently. No one on the bus had talked for the last half-hour or so. Maybe the others were trying to store up their courage for when the clinic reopened, or maybe they were all just tired. At the door, a young man took her name and handed her a blanket. That was about it for a welcome.

The warehouse had been divided into a maze of cells, each large enough for a pair of cots and a chest. Some of the walls were frame and drywall. Others were formed by office-style partitions. Long florescent lights hung from the rafters on chains, adding to the inhospitable atmosphere. _At least I don't have to stay more than a night or two_, Marie thought. She pitied those who made this a permanent home.

"It's dry and the administrators toss out anyone who steals," Irene said as they reached her tiny niche. The room didn't have a door, only a blanket hung on a clothesline to cover the opening. The walls here were cinder block.

"It could be worse." _And I thought Logan's trailer looked crappy._ That trip through the Canadian countryside seemed a lifetime ago. Had she even been the same person back then? Marie didn't think so. She managed a weak smile as she arranged her blanket on the cot opposite Irene's, then took off her long coat. "You were going to tell me what you saw in my future."

"Don't be so eager. It's not pretty." The woman pulled off her jacket and hat revealing stick-thin arms. Her collarbone protruded like a ledge from her chest above the scoop neck of her sweater. Marie wondered if it was deprivation or self-loathing that made Irene starve herself so. She grew more eager to extract herself from this situation by the minute.

"I didn't think it was going to be pretty. But, if you tell me my future I can figure out if I'm doing what's right or not."

"About taking the cure?" Irene reached across the narrow space between the cots and took Marie's hands. Her dark eyes narrowed and took on an fierceness that made Marie uneasy. "It's right. It's right for all of us."

"Nothing is right for everyone."

"The cure is. It's salvation from an otherwise inevitable Armageddon."

Marie stared at the bony fingers clutching hers. Irene's nails were chewed to the quick, the fingertips too pink and raw. Those fingers pressed into her own hands, and Marie was grateful for the barrier of her gloves between her skin and Irene's. The woman was a zealot. She couldn't have anything of value to say. Still, was it smart to run from an insane woman when you had no safe place of escape? Better to stay in the shelter where other people were less than a shout away.

"You think I'm insane," Irene said without malice. "I'm not. I've seen the coming holocaust over and over for years. Every time I touch a mutant, I see it."

"Is that what you saw when you touched me?"

"No." Irene looked confused about that. "It's been changing. Eighteen months ago I was certain it couldn't be stopped. I even thought I could pinpoint the day when it was going to begin. Then, the visions shifted. The atrocities were pushed back and there seemed to be a slim hope of avoiding them altogether. I didn't understand until they announced the cure. Now it makes sense. If there are no mutants left, we can't burn the world."

Marie picked her way through that slowly, as if it were a minefield. Irene being insane did not mean her power wasn't real, and accurate. "So, the future can be changed. Whatever you see, it's not guaranteed to happen."

"People are too selfish to make the sacrifices needed to change the future." Irene released Marie's hands and covered her own face. "I see and see and even when it changes it doesn't go away. We put off the day it begins. Where it starts varies. But, it never goes away."

_Go. Run._ Marie wanted to obey those inward commands, but she stayed on the cot. Insane or not, Irene might be seeing the real future? Shouldn't she learn as much detail as she could about the end of the world so she had a better chance of stopping it? Or at least so she could tell those who could stop it? "What's coming? Tell me. I want to know."

"Fire, earthquakes, floods." The woman moaned a little as if the words hurt to say. "Chaos. Murder without cause or explanation. It's like we all go crazy one day and decide the only thing that matters is pain and death."

"Mutants do this?" Marie thought about Storm, and Logan, and the other good people she knew at the school. They were not going to suddenly participate in that sort of destruction. "What about the ones who don't want to kill?"

"There are none." Irene fastened that fanatic's stare on her again. "None."

"You said your vision for me didn't include that sort of insanity," Marie pointed out. "So it isn't every mutant. It can't be."

"You don't understand. I'm not explaining properly. The truth is in the visions I've gotten from the mutants I do see destroying the world. They know it's all mutants. They show me that truth."

Marie pulled her legs up onto the cot and curled away from Irene. She wanted to get the cure and go home. She wanted to start living a normal, if boring, life and forget about saving the world. But, if what Irene told her was true, she had an obligation to try to stop it. Didn't she? "I should go back."

"No. No, you shouldn't." Irene crawled into the cot with her, crowding her against the cinderblock wall. "You have to take the cure along with the rest of us here. Don't you see? Mutants use their powers to destroy the world. The only way to stop it is for none of us to have those powers."

"And what about those of us who would stop the destruction? If we're taking the cure, we're fulfilling your visions rather than stopping them."

"It's not like that, Marie." Irene grabbed her shoulders, sharp fingers pressing into her flesh through all the protective layers of cloth. "You think you are going to be a hero, but you won't. I saw what will happen. In my vision, you hadn't taken the cure."

-----

_I got it already_, Bobby thought as the Mutant Affairs Secretary guided him out of the police station. _I'm an irresponsible idiot. You can stop lecturing me._

"Sometimes the choices others make seem so egregious to us that we feel we simply must take action, but --"

"You brought the Bentley?"

McCoy blinked in surprise. "The tank was full."

Thank god for cars. They were great conversation turners. Still, McCoy squeezed his shoulder, and Bobby took that to mean the lecture was only delayed, not forgotten. He suspected that the ride back to Westchester would be more torturous than the hours he'd just spent in jail.

Storm sat behind the wheel. She folded her cell phone as she turned. "None of the hospitals have Rogue as a patient."

"Then, given our findings at the clinic, we have to assume she never went there at all." McCoy held the rear door for Bobby. "Where was she going?"

_So, my whole effort was pointless,_ he thought as he crawled into the car. All he'd managed to do was get his name linked with Magneto's terrorists. Meanwhile, Rogue had thoroughly slipped away from him, probably still fuming about the stupidity with Kitty. He felt like a fool and worse.

"I asked, what made you think Rogue was going to White Plains?" McCoy repeated himself twice before Bobby realized the question was pointed at him.

"Peter just said she took off. She's never been happy about not being able to control her powers and she was interested in the cure. I made an assumption, that's all."

"No reason to believe she's in danger then." McCoy dismissed Rogue without even using any big words. Bobby would have liked to punch him, but there was probably some law against hitting cabinet members. Instead, he slouched into the leather upholstery, and rubbed his wrists.

The car's interior smelled burnt and when Bobby ran a finger over the glassy surface of the center console, he felt grit. The tip came up black. The smell he could attribute to Storm and McCoy's visit to the bombed clinic, but neither of them had been sitting in back to shake the black dust over everything.

"We need to concentrate on Magneto and what danger he might pose to the school," McCoy continued.

Bobby wanted to argue, but there was no point. Besides, the soot scattered across the seat beside him was really strange. The pattern suggested someone was actually sitting there.

"You don't think he'd attack us, do you?" Storm asked.

Bobby started to stretch his hand across to the other seat when he noticed that the center console was now clear. It had been coated with black a moment earlier, his finger streak clearly visible. Now, the dust had all pushed to one side. That couldn't be the movement of the car. The Bentley road too smoothly. Something else had moved the fine coating of soot.

"I think we have to be ready for Magneto to do anything," McCoy answered.

"Guys?" Bobby stared at the console. Another layer of soot appeared on the surface. And this a series of small puffs cleared a pattern of dots in the coating.

"What is it?" Storm sounded irritated. But, then she'd sounded that way a lot recently.

"I don't think I'm alone back here."

-----

Marie wanted to run. She wanted to throw Irene across the cubicle, or scream in her face. Caged, that's how she felt. Trapped. Irene pressed too close, both bodily and with her fanatical beliefs. It was all too much like being chained to Magneto's machine. Marie felt her whole body begin to tremble.

From all around the shelter, she heard the muffled sounds of despair -- soft, choked cries and rasped, desperate laughter. Everyone here was running scared. They admitted their terror and cried, or tried to hide in fake amusement. _And I'm fitting right in_, Marie thought as she flinched farther from Irene's intrusion. _I'm running from everything including a skinny woman I could probably collapse with one punch. Escape, fear, failure, when did those things come to define me?_

Back at home, only a few years ago, she'd been a different person. Other girls, if they imagined a vacation, thought about shopping in Paris or sunning on a beach in Cancun. She'd dreamed hitchhiking alone across Canada. She'd been fearless, bold. But, adventure had brought her too close to death. That brave girl had died, twisted in the plot of a madman on Liberty Island.

"Don't you want to know what I saw in your future?" Irene coaxed.

_No. I don't._ Marie wanted to forget failure and fear. She wanted to go back to her parents and live a safe, happy life. And yet, if Irene's vision of the future was true, there was no safe, happy life for anyone, was there? "Tell me."

Irene was shorter than Marie, and a good deal thinner. Still, she took an a motherly pose, leaning her back against the cider blocks and draping an arm around Marie, stroking her hair. "You will be outside in a forest, at night. The air will be cool but not cold. Early fall, perhaps."

"So a near future?" Marie fought the pressure of Irene's hand against the side of her skull that was forcing her head to the woman's shoulder.

"Probably only a few months away. You still have your powers. You made a mistake and didn't take the cure." The pressure eased, as Irene gave up trying to pull Marie's head down. She continued to stroke her hair.

"How do you know that?"

"I see visions from inside the other person's head. So, I know you will be thinking your powers make you a target. You fear being killed because of them. You also hate that the powers or useless to save anyone, most of all the one you love. Also, you are wearing your long gloves, your scarf -- your armor."

"So that's it? I'm afraid and I still have my powers?" It sounded particularly convenient for Irene's argument that the vision showed her afraid because she apparently didn't take the cure.

"Oh, no." Irene patted her shoulder. "Much more."

Marie shifted out of the precog's grasp. She didn't want the comfort Irene offered. It trapped her, obligated her. "I don't like to be touched."

"You're afraid to be touched. But, you want it. You long for it. You miss your lover."

"I think I've heard enough." Marie did not want Irene knowing her secrets -- how she touched herself, how she wanted it to be real so much that invented someone who could touch her.

"You will leave him," Irene said. "When you run into the woods, you will be abandoning him. You know you've doomed him to become a monster. I saw that pain in you, too."

"Abandon who?" Marie paused.

"The man you love."

_I don't love anyone, _Marie thought. Unless Irene meant Bobby. He was, technically, still her boyfriend. "Bobby?"

"I suppose. All I know is that you will sit in this forest before a campfire thinking how hollow you feel inside. Your mind cries because you love him and will never see him again. And you will never be able to explain to him why you ran away with another man."

This time, Marie just stared at her. If she kept her powers, she would abandon someone she loved to run off into the woods with another man? That vision made no sense at all.

"Him I see clearly because he's with you. A big man with dark, wild hair. He smokes cigars."

"That's Logan," Marie blurted. "Why am I running away with Logan?"

"Because if you don't, you'll die. Neither of you can fight what drove you out of your home."

-----

It had taken Scott several tries before he could focus his blasts between his fingers with enough precision to write a crude message in the soot that covered the Bentley's backseat console. Once Bobby noticed, however, things had developed rapidly. Scott had run out of dirt to push around all too quickly, but by then Ororo and Hank had accepted his presence was real.

Once they arrived at the mansion, Hank worked out an improved communication system. He set up a metal sheet with a small hole in the center for Scott to focus his blasts through. On the other side, they clipped a pressure sensitive plate that moved slowly, right to left and then down, like paper in a printer. It was slow going, but with a bit of timed blinking, Scott could type out a message in Morse code.

He could finally get people working on a solution to the many challenges they faced. Hank was now in contact with the government, preparing for a coordinated effort should it come to battle. Ororo orchestrated the students in a search of every Internet site where they might find hints of how and where Magneto was recruiting his army. Peter had called already every cure clinic within a day's travel of Westchester, looking for Rogue, and learned they were all closed following the terrorist attack.

Scott decided he could finally stop giving orders long enough to rest his eyes. He sank into a chair and surveyed his efforts. They'd yet to uncover any useful information about Magneto, but the buzz of activity soothed. He allowed his eyelids to drift closed. He was back in command, doing his job. No longer helpless.

He should be happy, or at least satisfied. And yet, he couldn't help feeling he should have continued the search for Rogue personally.

There were a hundred reasons why he couldn't do that, all very rational, very logical. And that mattered, didn't it? The power beat against his eyelids, a steady throb in rhythm with his heart. Why had he never noticed that particular synergy before?

All around him people worked because he'd managed to give them direction when no one else would. Or could. He'd failed these people badly when he forgot them for Jean. But, he'd learned that lesson. And lessons learned had to stay learned. Didn't they? Hell, even Rogue would tell him _they need you_. She would want him to do his job.

Besides, she'd chosen to go. She had a right to cure herself if that's what she really wanted. There was no reason to believe she was in danger, or wanted to come home.

He was doing the right thing. He still felt he was failing her.


	13. Chapter 13

Author's Note: Thanks for your patience. Now that the holidays are over, I should be able to spend more time writing. And I haven't yet taken the time to thank my awesome beta-readers (FenixR and Zathara001). Thank you, ladies! And thanks, of course, to everyone who has taken the time to comment -- LOVE getting those reviews.

* * *

Chapter Thirteen

Last night, when Jean sensed Logan in the woods near Magneto's camp, she'd tried to contact him. But The Eater shoved her so deep into their mind she could barely sense the outside world. After a night of fitful sleep, she woke shortly after dawn and found herself once again in control of their body's shared powers.

Instantly, she searched for Logan. Had Magneto found him while she was buried in her own subconscious? Was he bleeding and dying somewhere in the woods? Jean tracked Logan to the edge of the encampment. He was alert, aware of the sentries, safe for now.

She knew The Eater was playing with her, yet had no idea what it wanted or why it let her use their powers one moment and then stole them back the next. Did it want her to lead Logan into a trap? Was she unwittingly helping it achieve its goals? And even if she was, what choice did she have? Waking Phoenix was the only way to stop Magneto and destroy The Eater.

And only Logan could wake Phoenix.

"The boss is ready. You're to come now." The one they called Juggernaut appeared out of the mists. Jean's mind was wide open, sweeping the area for Logan, so she caught Juggernaut's thoughts as well. He wasn't stupid, merely single minded and cruel. He seemed eager to test his strength against hers.

She felt limitless power flowing below her skin, more than enough to wipe the self-satisfied smile off his heavy face. A cold desire to use that power followed. But the last thing Jean wanted was to provide The Eater with a new child. She rose without comment and followed Juggernaut.

Sunlight cut through the trees sharply, making her squint. Her body flinched in sympathetic pain as Logan struggled to reach her. She refused to let go of the shallow link that would guide him to her. He risked so much just because she'd called.

She was manipulating him. There was no love at the end of this for Logan. But, by calling him here, she knew she'd given him hope. The fact should have invited at least a pang of guilt, but her heart felt dead.

Likewise, waking Phoenix should frighten her. Her alter ego had killed Charles. She was a child with a god's abilities, and no experience with the world. And yet, that risk too left Jean strangely indifferent. She'd grown detached from her emotions. Perhaps that was best. Guilt wouldn't server her in this. Magneto and The Eater had to be stopped. There was no choice.

Picking her way over fallen trees and rocks ached more than it had yesterday. Like her lack of emotions, she suspected these pains were signs of approaching death. Their body had been healed and forced to endure as much as it could.

_So little time left._ And even that fact no longer mattered except in a coldly logistic way. If Magneto would hold off his army even a few days, it would be too late for The Eater. But the man insisted on playing right into the monster's plans. He intended to make a massive attack tonight. The Eater's children were about to be born. Jean knew she had to stay strong and determined to prevent that disaster.

Magneto had already begun his speech by the time she and Juggernaut arrived at the rise. Jean took a position some distance away from the others, though she knew Magneto wanted her right next to him. She needed to be able to slip away when Logan found her. He'd reached the edge of the crowd now. Soon, it would all be settled soon.

As she took her place, Magneto glanced at her. "They have their weapons. We have ours."

_You have nothing_, she couldn't help shooting back. If her telepathic flash caught him, he didn't show it.

Logan was in the center of the crowd now, cloaked to hide his appearance from the mob, but looking straight at her. Jean waited, expecting Phoenix to acknowledge him. She wondered what would happen when her other half seized control of body and power. That thought, at last, caused a trickle of fear to course through Jean. But Phoenix didn't move.

"We shall go to Alcatraz Island, take control of the cure, and destroy its source." Magneto was winding up his speech. Soon enough he'd send those with transporting powers into the army to begin moving troops across the country. He'd told his so-called generals -- Scott would have laughed at that designation for most of them -- a thief, a thug, her possessed and dying self, and a boy. The one called Callisto had some leadership skills. But she cared only for the gang she'd brought with her, all of whom were in the chosen elite. No one considered the masses about to destroy themselves.

"And then nothing can stop us!" Magneto had the crowd cheering.

Jean had to get away before she was pulled into some strategy huddle. She ducked to the left, behind a large tree and then up the hill. Logan followed her. Good. Now, if only Phoenix would notice his presence. In their parents' house, Phoenix had focused all her attention on Logan the moment he arrived. Now, she ignored him. Something was very wrong.

There was only one way to discover the problem. Jean would have to talk directly with Phoenix. And for the first time that day, she felt real dread. Avoiding even the existence of Phoenix had been Jean's goal for so long. Her counterpart had been rival and sister and betrayer, but never approachable. Jean had expected to retreat when her twin rose. To talk to her, to touch her … the thought terrified.

She gathered her courage and focused on creating the inner framework for the encounter. Reaching Phoenix meant twisting her consciousness inward, away from the forest and Magneto. Her inner world would become more real than the outer. She'd be abandoning Logan to Magneto while she did this.

Jean allowed herself one narrow window of attention on the outside world where Logan still followed through the woods. She felt his mind. He wondered why she'd called him and now walked away from him. He smelled his own sweat as well as the blood from the fight moments earlier, worried that she wouldn't want to see him like that. Touch him like that. His need was so raw and open.

She had to turn from that longing. She couldn't share it -- not only because her heart had gone so cold, but because it had always belonged to another. Logan didn't understand how hopeless his pursuit had been or that the encouragement he received came from her hidden self, not her, not Jean. Jean had always been Scott's, always would be. But, when she looked at the place where she'd hidden that love the treasure seemed dusty and dull. Even that passion had dried. The fire for life inside her was ash. The only feeling she seemed capable of now was fear.

Perhaps Phoenix's desires had also died. Perhaps she was no longer alive enough to care. Jean couldn't allow herself to give up hope. She had to believe Phoenix could still be reached. She pushed her awareness of Logan back and bent her thoughts inward until the world of her mind became more solid and real than the external one.

She turned away from the sight of her eyes in favor of that inner vision that made thoughts into worlds, houses, and rooms. Her own consciousness took shape within that world, very much like her outer form, and she walked down a curving stairway into the hidden places of her mind.

The air tasted closed in and sour, like sorrow. The farther she went, the less color bled through the walls, until a glance down at her own hand showed it as gray and lifeless as the dank stone. From below she heard a thin keening.

Jean found Phoenix huddled on the floor of a round pit-deep room. Her alter-ego looked like a mirror of Jean herself. Perhaps younger, or at least less work-worn. Perhaps just the woman Jean would have been had she chosen a life that never required all-night shifts at hospitals or labs. Her twin's hair was long, longer even than their body now manifested, and vibrant red. When Phoenix looked up, her tear-bright eyes were green, not brown.

"He's not what I thought," Phoenix moaned. Far from an emotionless husk, her voice trembled with outrage and loss. Far more than fear survived in her. It wasn't too late. "He's a lie. Such a lie."

"Who? Logan?" Jean guessed. She knelt and cautiously embraced her other self. It felt awkward, but no longer frightening. The hatred she'd felt for her sister had been purged in their parents' house, but the fear remained. Phoenix was dangerous, and perhaps unstable. Now, she seemed only a little lost and frightened. A little love warmed the core of Jean's heart again. Phoenix curled into the hug.

"Yes." The voice sounded too small for a personality who thrived on risk and excitement. Her body shivered, and Jean's felt an answering tremor run through her own form. She knew this sense of betrayal and loss, though she had no idea what caused Phoenix's disillusionment.

"Why?"

"I thought he was a hero, but he's a monster. I saw him."

Jean didn't have to ask what she saw. Phoenix was already showing her. The stone walls around them dissolved. They knelt on the edge of a dense jungle. Beyond, mosquitoes hung amid clouds of bluish smoke over a boggy field, half obscuring the cluster of huts perched on a small mound of drier earth. Heat rose from the mushy forest floor, soaking them instantly in sweat, and the stench of flame assaulted their nostrils.

"What is this place?" Jean asked.

"Viet Nam, I think," Phoenix said, her voice quivering as if the memory were her own rather than belonging to some veteran of that long-ago war. "He was here. There."

She pointed and they leapt to the village in one of those instantaneous vaults reserved for dream or memory. Here, explosions rattled their bones. Long, undulating screams counter-pointed staccato gun fire. Then silence, more penetrating than the noise, surrounded them.

"It's over," Jean whispered.

Phoenix shook her head. "It's beginning."

A soldier circled one of the huts. Others appeared out of the jungle, some white, some black, all American, heavily armed and dirty. A commanding voice called them all to order. Jean couldn't see the man behind that voice, but she thought she should know it.

Logan arrived last, and he was unmistakable even with his hair shaved close to his skull and his cheeks smooth. He looked exactly the same age as when Jean first met him, some way station of adulthood between thirty and forty. His uniform was torn in several places and he didn't wear a helmet. Maybe they all knew he didn't need one.

"He's going to kill them," Phoenix whispered. Her voice cracked on the word kill.

"Who? The soldiers?"

"No."

The commander ordered the squad to begin clearing the huts. The voice felt as if it came from inside Jean's own skull. _It's his memory_, she realized, _the commander's._ But, she had no time to contemplate that fact.

A boy, not more than thirteen, erupted from a hut. Sunlight flashed on the blade he swung. He caught Logan in the shoulder, the machete stuck. The boy died on the point of Logan's knife. Silence again, that eerie dead quiet from before.

Jean felt Phoenix shaking in her arms, but her eyes focused on Logan's face. His nostrils flared and his brows lowered. He sensed something the others couldn't. Whatever it was, he didn't like it. Even the commander missed the nuance.

"Kill them," Logan said. "Kill everyone here."

"I want to go!" Phoenix cried. The scene clouded. Then the clouds solidified into cell walls once more. "I don't want to watch. He killed them all for no reason."

"There was a reason," Jean told her. "I don't know what it was, but he had one."

"Hatred was the reason." The intruding voice was the commander's, still familiar and not. "Or a love of killing."

"He's a monster," Phoenix whispered.

"He's not," Jean insisted. Phoenix needed to understand what the commander wanted to hide. "He sensed something in that boy, some danger--"

"The boy was already dead." Jean turned to confront the commander's challenge. William Stryker stood in the doorway of their tiny cell, baring the way. He still wore old-fashioned fatigues like those she'd seen in the memory, but his face and body belonged to the declining man controlling the Alkali Lake complex.

"There's more to it," Jean shouted. "Show her!"

"She doesn't want to see the gore." So smug. So self-satisfied.

Jean caught the waves of emotion coming off the mental construct of Stryker -- gloating, cruel pleasure at the pain he caused -- and found another emotion still lived in her. Hatred. She struggled for control of this inner world. It was hers. She should be able to crush him within it.

Stryker stepped back and put his hand on the heavy, wooden door. Had there been a door in this room when she entered? Jean didn't think so. How could a construct alter her inner world? For that matter, how could it give Phoenix memories?

Jean held tight to her power even as she felt The Eater ripping it away. She focused all that energy on the image of Stryker, forced her way into his dark mind. For a moment she feared it would engulf her. Then, she found what she needed. She tore the entire memory free and flung it wildly toward the outside world and Logan.

The wooden door slammed closed, and with the sound her connection to their power severed. The lights in the tiny room went out. She sat alone in the prison with Phoenix, her only contact with the outside world the little window she'd made earlier.

Through that opening, she saw Magneto lift Logan off the ground, pull and torture him, then finally fling him through the trees like an unwanted doll. If she'd still had her power, she knew she would have felt him die. But that was nothing to Logan. He'd wake. She had to hope, when he did recover, he'd still have the horrible gift she'd given him.

And she wondered why the cruelty inherent in that hope didn't bother her.

-----

"I need to know what you're doing here," Ororo said. She felt vaguely foolish talking to an empty space behind Hank's hastily constructed communication device. "All this endless searching, is it just for Jean?"

No matter how she squinted or turned her head, she couldn't see a person. The only indication Scott was real was the series of marks forming on the pressure sensitive paper the machine spat out. She had to trust her friend was really there. And these days -- given what Jean had become -- trust was hard.

Search is for everyone, he typed in his slow, careful code. Leaving Jean to Logan.

She relaxed, liking that answer. She remembered this Scott -- dedicated and certain, the Scott before Jean's death stole his confidence, or hope. Until this moment, she hadn't realized how much she needed him back. But could she believe this transformation? Would the real Scott have ever allowed Logan to lead a search for Jean?

"The president is preparing an assault on Magneto's base as we speak." Hank directed his report to the space where Scott supposedly stood rather than to her. "He's promised to keep us informed."

"So, we can stop looking for him?" Ororo replied anyway.

Scott typed How?

Hank settled his cell phone inside his jacket pocket. "Mystique. She's told them everything she knows."

We keep searching. 

In that, Ororo had to agree with Scott. "She's not going to turn on Magneto. If she's telling them something now, it's because she knows the information no longer matters."

"But, he did abandon her to be recaptured." Hank argued.

Hank might be brilliant, but he didn't understand female minds. "And she may well hate him now. But have no doubt that she hates the government more."

Scott's machine moved. Logan?

"I told the president to have his men look out for our operative." Hank turned that way immediately. The image of him talking to empty air still troubled Ororo. It seemed to accentuate what they'd all lost. "It was about all I could do."

"Logan can take care of himself," she said. Of that, at least, she was very sure.

Scott typed Not my worry. And then, Get Kitty. New job

Ororo was just as glad to leave the reading to someone else for a while. That last comment was too damn cryptic. She was tired of trying to decipher the truncated messages, and the secrets behind them -- Scott's, Hank's, the whole world's.

Her world used to be so straightforward. Jean loved Scott and put others first too often. Charles was invincible. The world would eventually come around to understanding mutants, too. But that was yesterday and a lifetime ago.

Now everything good seemed to contain a hidden disaster. Jean's return should have meant rejoicing, but it meant death. Hank might say he'd quit the government to be _where he belonged_, but Ororo knew he'd leave again when the present danger was over. His heart wasn't with the X-men anymore. _And when will that fact stop hurting?_ she wondered. Logan promised to help, then chose Jean over the rest of them. And the world that so recently seemed to be moving toward understanding instead wanted to cure them. Like Scott's terse messages, each event seemed so simple on the surface. But the surface lied.

Kitty came to take over, and Ororo headed for the door. She needed space and time to think through all the conflicting, complicated emotions inside. Except Hank followed her.

"Are you all right?"

"Fine. Tired." She rubbed her forehead.

"Are you certain?" He rested a hand on her arm, and all the old feelings flooded back. It was damned unfair that she couldn't move on from their years-dead love affair. Even Scott seemed to be moving past the loss of Jean, though it had taken going incorporeal to get him there. She shook off those thoughts. Better to talk about different issues than those long dead between them. "Suspicious too, I suppose."

"Of Scott?"

"A little." Ororo glanced back at the empty space in front of the machine. "He was so lost. Now, he has all his old drive back, and more. I want to believe. How can I?"

"He explained that melancholy. The Eater of Souls attacking him through his link to Jean."

_Yes, the mythology come to life._ Ororo supposed it wasn't the strangest thing she'd ever been expected to believe. "He's so single minded. Is he over the obsession and guilt, or has he simply found a new direction for it?"

"He wants to make a difference, Ororo, while he can."

Ororo pulled Hank farther out into the hall and closed the door. She didn't want anyone else to hear the shiver in her voice when she asked, "What do you mean by while he can?"

It was clear from Hank's expression that he didn't want to tell her. "He's told us the world he's -- what word did he use again, folded? Yes, folded. The world he's folded into is a void really. He can't interact with his environment more than fractionally. And without Rogue to pull him back into reality, he doesn't have much chance of ever changing that situation."

Count on Hank to dance around a subject he didn't like. She remembered how long it had taken him to get out the simple message that he was leaving for a job in Washington all those years ago. The implications of what he did say were clear enough, though, no matter how cautiously he presented them. Scott couldn't survive long in his folded state, and he had no way out of it now that Rogue was gone.

"You're saying he's going to die." She liked things clear. A sharp edge cut deep, but with less pain than a blunt one.

"In a word, yes. And there is nothing I or anyone else can do to change that."

"Unless Rogue comes back."

"Or Jean returns and recovers enough to unfold him. Neither is very likely."

The muscles of her neck and shoulders tightened. The tension ran down her arms until her fists clenched. In that moment, she felt more alone than she had since coming to Xavier's school. It wasn't that Scott was so much more important to her than the others. He was her friend, certainly, nearly a brother in some ways. But she'd already accepted his death once. She could do that again.

It was the fact that she was already tottering after losing Jean and Charles that made her feel like her legs were going to collapse under her. Logan had left despite her best efforts to hold him, so had Rogue. They'd nearly lost Bobby too. She couldn't take another loss. Not Scott. Not anyone.

"Does he know?"

She noticed how the cold, bluish light of the corridor made Hank's hair look like metal. Everything around her was turning so hard. "I don't see how he can help but know."

She wanted to stalk back into the room and demand Scott tell her he had a plan for staying alive, that he wasn't going to leave again too. She wanted someone's promise to stay. She shoved past Hank.

When she reached Scott's machine, however, she said, "Hank tells me you want to do something that matters before you die. Is that true?"

The machine didn't move.

"You want to fight Magneto, don't you?"

Kill The Eater, he answered instead.

"It still comes down to fighting, though, doesn't it? Even though there are only a few of us."

Probably.

Scott had always hid his emotions behind his glasses. Now, he could hide all his body language. Ororo had no idea how to read him. Was he resigned, eager? "One question. If we destroy ourselves fighting a battle we can't win, who will protect all the students at the school?"

"Maybe no one," Hank said behind her.

She turned to him once more. He might avoid painful subjects, but he wouldn't lie -- a strangely refreshing trait in one bent on a life in politics. If she cornered him, he would tell her the truth about whether he intended to stay with them, or go back to his chosen calling. The problem was, Ororo didn't think she wanted the answer. He wasn't her lover anymore, and never would be again.

Scott's answer was longer in coming. Won't lose.

It was what she'd wanted him to say. Yet, the answer didn't satisfy, perhaps because she couldn't trust it. Death and abandonment has stripped the trust out of her. She saw the loss, mourned it, but couldn't change it.

"Charles put me in charge before he died," she said at last. It was a challenge and Scott had to realize it. So did Hank. She'd been hiding and mourning and waiting for someone to take the burden away from her. No more. The only one she could trust was herself. "He gave me guardianship of the school, and the students. I won't betray that."

"Does that mean you won't fight?" Hank asked.

She couldn't say that. Magneto did need to be stopped. So did the cure. She opened her mouth to say so, but they heard Logan shouting downstairs.

-----

"You can ask, you know." Irene moved the cards around in her hand, but didn't play any of them. "Sometimes questions bring up more details of the vision."

"I suppose you want me to ask about the man you say I'm in love with." That was the safest of the available subjects. Marie had learned in her brief time with Irene that the woman wouldn't be put off once she opened a topic for conversation.

They'd been at the shelter all day, and she'd been playing cards with Irene since dinner ended a few hours ago. The game was boring, but the thought of sitting around staring at walls was worse, though even that wasn't as bad as dwelling on Irene's disturbing vision for her future.

"Not even curious?" Irene finally laid the three of clubs on the discard stack.

The three was no use to her. Marie discarded a ten and took a new card. "Why are you pushing me? You want me to take the cure and now you want me to think about some man I'll meet and love if I don't take it? What's with that, Irene?"

The truth was, she didn't want to know more about any of it. It was bad enough knowing that she might love someone if she kept her powers when the smart choice was still to give them up.

Irene fussed with her cards. "I thought you already knew him. Bobby you said? And I never said he wouldn't love you if you took the cure."

"You don't know what happens to me if I take the cure. You only saw a future where I didn't." And what did that say?

The public address system crackled. Then, a male voice boomed through the shelter. "Everyone waiting to go to the cure clinic, gather at the door. We have two buses to take you. The Brooklyn clinic is opening in half an hour and will take as many people as they can tonight. We've no word on whether there will be hours tomorrow."

Marie hastily pulled on her gloves and took her coat from the bedpost. She grabbed her bag before leaving. Once she'd taken the shot, she was going to find her way to a bus station and buy a ticket for home. It might be the middle of the night, but she had no intention of returning to the shelter with Irene. The woman creeped her out.

On the bus, Marie grabbed a seat by the window. Irene, of course, took the seat beside her, blocking her in. The bus didn't have air conditioning, or the unit was broken, and the interior rapidly became unbearable. In the end, she had no choice but to either push the heavy coat off her shoulders or suffocate.

"First thing I'm doing after I get home is buy some sleeveless T-shirts. Maybe something with spaghetti straps." She worked the coat off her shoulders.

Irene laughed, the sound relaxed and calm. Marie let her own head fall back against the hard seat. Her coat made a lumpy pillow at the bottom of her spine. She turned her face toward the window. The outside world was black, the glass like a mirror reflecting her pale face. It was going to be a long half-hour drive to Brooklyn. But, at the end, all this turmoil would be done. Settled. Over. Until the Armageddon of Irene's prophetic visions became reality.

Maybe she should at least call the school before she went home. She could tell Logan about the visions. The X-men would stop all mutants from going crazy, wouldn't they?

The bus began to slow for the turn that would take them to the clinic. Marie turned her head to look at Irene, thinking she should get more details of the apocalypse. The woman was staring at her with frightening, insane intensity.

"You know," Irene said. "You don't understand the knowledge, but you have it. I need to know."

Marie realized Irene was going to grab her an instant too late. She couldn't get away crushed as she was between the seats and the window. She managed one sharp, "No." Then, Irene's bony hands closed around her face. She felt the dry texture of the woman's palms before the ugly power inside her began to suck.

She could never move in those first few moments as her power took hold. Much as she wanted to shove the other woman away, Irene's skin seemed to fuse with her own. The power locked them together. The sensation was cold, a relentless wind cutting through all the normal, decent barriers between people. First, Irene's pain hit her. Then a torrent of foreign thoughts fell into Marie's mind, washing away her own.

Insanity didn't begin to explain the cacophony inside that brain. Like Marie, Irene's power took a little piece of each person she touched, until all their future memories shouted and argued inside her. Yet, that chaotic mind still focused on the monster that would destroy them all. One monster with a million voices, powers, forms. Screaming.

Calm.

Irene was gone. The bus was gone. A steady, sweet breeze moved Marie's hair. She knew she was up at the reservoir near the school and that no one was going to intrude. She caught brief glimpse of trees and grass, a slice of blue sky, and then fingers turned her face. Her eyes drifted closed. She felt lips against hers.

She pushed a hand into his hair, so soft and not as short as it used to be. He hadn't wanted her to touch his face a moment before. He'd been afraid she'd jostle too much. But, now he didn't seem to notice and she liked his hair. She liked his mouth too, the smoothness and the firmness, a man's mouth not a boy's. He was a little rough, used his teeth. She liked that too.

She let herself lean back, let him press down on her into the grass. The sensation of skin against skin enticed her. More, she wanted more, despite the hovering sense that something was wrong. She tugged his shirt off his shoulders. Someone groaned, she couldn't tell if it was him, or her. Her hands fisted in the fabric of his shirt and she stopped the downward pull. There was a reason she shouldn't do this, but she couldn't quite touch it.

Marie tore Irene's hands away from her face. She held on to the frail wrists as her sight wavered between the fading, erotic vision and the reality in front of her. The scent of the man in her future hung in the air for a moment, as real as the sour stench of the bus. She knew that scent. Marie forced her mind to focus on the present.

Irene was only half-conscious. The veins stood out on her face like wires and she had a pale, waxy cast to her skin. If Marie released her now, she'd collapse on the floor and be trampled. The bus had stopped and people were already filing toward the doors.

"Help," she managed. Only the word came out as a squeak. No one paid attention. Marie braced Irene against the seat and struggled to get her own coat back on. By then the bus was nearly empty. Only three people still waited at the door. She couldn't leave Irene alone. The woman wanted the cure desperately and this could be her only chance to get it. No one knew if the clinics would stay open after tonight. It wasn't right to leave her. What if she died from Marie's touch?

But, the vision confused Marie. That couldn't have been Scott she was kissing. He was dead and the times she'd seen him were delusion, weren't they? And he wouldn't have been kissing her that way, would he? Irene's meager weight drooped against Marie's shoulder. She lifted the smaller woman, careful not to touch skin to skin again. There was no time to sort the contradictions now. She had to get Irene outside where the clinic workers could help her.

Marie struggled to the open door of the bus. Her own choices were now a hopeless muddle. If what she'd seen was really the future, then Scott was alive and maybe he needed her after all. But, his being alive didn't mean the whole of her fantasy about him being folded into some alternate dimension was true. She shook her head. Right now she could only focus on getting Irene the help she needed.

They nearly fell down the steps. Fortunately, a couple orderlies from the clinic were there to catch them. More fortunately, the men didn't touch Marie's skin when they did. Irene was beginning to rouse a bit. She turned still glazed eyes toward Marie.

"You know," she whispered.

"What's wrong with this one?" The taller of the two orderlies asked. He reminded Marie of a cement wall, square and coarse, his features flat.

"She's sick," Marie said. "It's not contagious. She wants the cure."

"Marie!" Irene's voice rose several octaves. Her fingers locked around the collar of Marie's coat. "You know what it is. You know."

"What?" Marie tried to wrench her coat free. The other orderly, this one equally tall but with a body builder's narrow waist and wide shoulders, caught her arm before Irene could pull her off balance.

"The monster who kills the world." Irene was shrieking now. "I saw its face in your mind. The Eater of Souls."


	14. Chapter 14

Author's note: What can I say? This chapter just kicked my butt.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you who are taking the time to read my story, and especially those of you who have put it on alerts and favorites lists -- these make my day. Also, Shadow Man is in someone's archive -- how cool. As always, thanks especially for the reviews! Love you all. Thanks for sticking with me as this thing has slowed down. I'm going to try to keep it going at a faster pace, but the story comes as it comes and sometimes it's harder to get right than other times.

Disclaimer: Time to remind everyone that I don't own X-men and this story is just written for pleasure, not profit. No infringement intended. Also, some of the events in this chapter, as with earlier chapters, correspond to scenes in X-men 3: The Last Stand. Therefore, some of the events and some dialog is taken directly from that movie.

* * *

Chapter Fourteen

The Eater had won. Though Jean tried every mental trick she knew, she could not break free of the prison the monster had locked her into with her alter ego. She suspected Phoenix might be able to do better, if she could be made to care. But, for now, all Jean could do was watch the narrow slice of the outside world The Eater allowed her.

The sun had just set behind the tortured bridge Magneto had raised in the air. The creaking sorrow of tortured metal rang hollowly. Less than an hour earlier the last of the army had been teleported across the country to the hills of San Francisco. A chubby girl of seventeen, a runaway with hard eyes and clenched jaw, had provided Jean's passage. As The Eater stepped their body through the distortion in space the girl made, Jean couldn't help wondering why Xavier hadn't found that child. Why had she instead been left on the street long enough to learn that distrustful stare, and lose so much hope that she chose to follow a madman?

Now, on the bridge, Jean wondered where the teleporter girl was positioned. Would she be fodder now that her chief purpose was done, or kept to the rear in case Magneto needed a quick escape? Dust rose, as the bridge smashed into Alcatraz's guard tower. At least Jean didn't suffer the sting of all that dirt in her nose nor the jarring pain in her joints from the impact. She was too insulated from their body's pain in her prison. The Eater bore the brunt.

The monster didn't care. Its mind swarmed with excitement anticipating a night of carnage. It let her see its dreams. Millennia of procreating and hiding among humans was not living to The Eater. That was preparation for a prophesized season of destruction. The Grand Dying -- The Eater's parent had come within a hair's breadth of causing the glorious event, and the one in Jean's body had hoped it would participate. But, both those dreams had failed. Now, The Eater's hope lay in its offspring. In her distant mind Jean heard it talking to them, telling them that they would be born tonight and live to see the end of all life.

Jean cringed at the dark promises. At least she could fathom Magneto's goals, misguided as they were. But, The Eater's joys were an evil so alien they were incomprehensible. It truly rejoiced in planning the cessation of all life.

The only way to stop it lay with Phoenix, and she still crouched on the floor, miserable over the memories of Logan killing the villagers. From outside, the first sounds of combat -- shouts and the stomping feet of Magneto's army -- rattled the walls of the cell.

Jean knelt next to her twin. "You can't let this destroy you. You can get us out of here. You can overpower The Eater if you try."

"I can't." She sounded small and lost. "I can't do anything. Every time I try to help I make things worse."

"That's not true."

"But it is." Phoenix turned her face up, and at last there was a spark of defiance in her eyes. "Every time. I stopped the professor from becoming an Eater. But you were still angry."

"You killed him." The problem with living wholly in one's mind was that thoughts came out all to easily as words.

"What was I supposed to do?"

Jean had no answer for that. How many ways were there to stop the monster? Maybe Phoenix was right and sacrificing the professor was necessary for a greater good.

"My whole life you and your professor told me to do nothing, stay hidden, that anything I do would be bad and dangerous. Every time I tried to do something, I was wrong. Do you remember how insecure you were feeling about your love life? I took over and made us so sexy, and you hated me for it."

Jean looked away. She had been jealous of the way Scott responded to Phoenix. It sounded foolish now, but then…

"Now, when I finally accept what you and the professor told me is true, when I know I can't even pick a man to love who isn't evil and cruel, all you want me to do is act."

None of their past troubles mattered now. "You're the only one who can stop this monster."

"What if I have to kill more people? What if I have to kill someone you love?" Real challenge flashed in Phoenix's eyes. "Will you hate me? Will you lock me away in here again and forget me?"

_No_, Jean wanted to protest. But was that true? She could promise never to lock Phoenix away again because they were already dead and doomed. If they were alive, if there were a way back to what she'd had before, Jean would want her life with Scott, unencumbered by Phoenix's fascination with Logan, or with Scott's interest in her twin. She would want Phoenix gone.

She thought about Phoenix's life, trapped as they both now were in this small mind-cell with only one window on the world. Phoenix had never been allowed to grow and learn. She'd never been given the chance because her powers were so dangerous. Like some princess in a fairytale she could only gaze out her window and hope for rescue. But, it wasn't a prince this Rapunzel needed. And in a flash of understanding, Jean knew -- Phoenix didn't need Logan. She needed her Jean to set her free.

_If I had to choose between Scott and the other half of my soul, what would I keep?_ Jean embraced the question, the all-too-brief stab of pain it brought, and the only right answer.

"I'll never hate you again, no matter what."

-----

Scott's fingers squeezed hard against the back of Hank's seat without denting the stiff fabric. He forced his hands to relax a bit, but his stomach still knotted. He was always a little queasy before a mission. Only this time, the deep breathing that usually calmed him hadn't worked.

Ororo had the pilot seat. Logan was at copilot, just in front of Hank, doing a reasonable job with the readouts. Scott couldn't remember a time when he'd been in the jet and not taking up one of those two forward positions.

Behind him, in the passenger compartment, Bobby, Kitty, and Peter rode silently. Scott knew the kids were nervous about their first real combat. He wanted to tell them it was good to be afraid, that fear kept you sharp and bravado didn't win battles. Unfortunately, they wouldn't have heard his little speech.

His folded state still locked him away from his team. He couldn't encourage them. He couldn't lead them. That surrender of control might be what kept claws digging into his gut as they approached the battleground. Scott didn't like counting on other people to make the decisions.

Or, it could be simple regret keeping him tense. All those months he'd spend in morbid grief could have been used to teach them all. Now, there was no time and no choice. He had a lot to regret, no time to rectify. His mind flashed briefly to Rogue and the fact he still felt guilty for not searching harder for her. He told himself that was selfish. He needed her power or he wouldn't survive much longer, but that still didn't ring true as the motive behind his wish to find her. Unfortunately, he had no time to contemplate those thoughts either.

The jet cleared had cleared the Rockies a while back, and now the lights of San Francisco sped beneath them. Alcatraz Island lay just ahead. Hank leapt from his seat, momentarily blocking Scott's view of the scene.

"Going to stealth mode," Ororo announced. They circled the scene, giving Scott a chance to study the battlefield. Magneto's forces swarmed the narrow ground before the former prison's main entrance. Whatever weapons the guard troops had had, they'd been rendered ineffective. The soldiers were in full retreat before the horde. Scott scanned the area for Jean and caught a glimpse of her on the bridge behind Magneto. At least none of the dead soldiers were getting up. Apparently, The Eater was waiting for mutant casualties. It wanted power for its young.

"Set her down on the roof," Logan said. "Don't want to crush anyone from our side."

"All I see are Magneto's mutants. Where is this Eater Scott was telling us about?" Hank shifted into Scott's sight line again.

The Eater was Scott's concern, though he had no idea how he would kill it given that Alcatraz was clad in cement and it took life to destroy the monster.

"That's not our worry," Logan answered. "Scott will deal with The Eater. Our job is to stop Magneto. You did tell the president to warn the army we were coming, right?"

Hank nodded. "They are expecting us. No one should be shooting at our backs."

"Good." Logan's voice carried a rough growl under the words. It was clear he didn't like this mission much at all. "I don't need to be cured."

Scott didn't even want to think about the problem this cure presented. He was grateful to have his own power back. It was the only advantage he had against The Eater.

"And what about Jean?" That was Hank again. The jet settled onto the flat roof of the complex, nose turned too far from the battle for Scott to even try to see Jean in the midst of Magneto's army, but Hank's question struck him hard all the same.

"Logan will have to deal with her when the time comes." Ororo's voice had already taken on its cold battle-edge.

"If it comes to that," Logan countered.

Scott forced himself to listen to the debate. He'd avoided thinking too much about Jean since she spoke to him mentally through The Eater's young. Charles' death had been enough to shock him into a numb state at first. Then, concern for Rogue, for Bobby, for the whole team distracted him.

Now, he was going to see her again and had to face down the fact she was going to die. Logan might still deny the truth, but Scott could no longer make himself believe he would save her.

Jean would die with The Eater. He waited for his gut to cramp at the thought. The tension he already felt never intensified. He wished he could feel more. Some suffering seemed a proper accompaniment to the realization his love was dying. But he couldn't find more. Maybe he'd reached some critical juncture in grief, or maybe he'd just lived with the reality of Jean's death long enough for it to become tolerable. Whatever the reason, Scott could now stare at the truth without quaking.

And that was a good thing because he had to focus on killing the monster any way he could.

-----

"The Eater of Souls," Irene wailed.

Marie's world crystallized. She took in the alley where they stood, moonlight stark white on the dark, broken pavement. The paint-smeared brick wall with its iron door remained barely visible in comparison. The bus rumbled behind her like a patient dragon. It was all so clear, so obvious. Everything she'd experienced at the mansion with Scott had been real.

The only way The Eater of Souls could be the disaster Irene feared was if it was going to take over mutant souls. Scott told her The Eater of Souls took over Dr. Grey at the moment she died. And he said it wanted him to commit suicide, presumably so it could take him over too. If Irene was right, then everything Scott said made perfect sense. But, none of it was something her own mind would have invented. She wasn't a creative person. The logic of it all leap at her.

She had a purpose. She had the power to make a difference in the world. It was all true.

"It will devour us all and we'll destroy the world if we have powers. Marie, none of us can have powers."

"It's okay, lady," The orderly Marie thought of as a wall said. He kept his voice low and patient. "Everyone here is going to get a dose. They've got plenty inside."

He must have called on a handheld because another clinic worker appeared with a wheelchair for Irene. They eased her into it as best they could given her agitation.

_Be happy, Irene,_ Marie thought as they wheeled the woman through the clinics back door. _You get what you want. I have a different path._ She had to get back to Westchester as fast as she could, find Scott, and do what she could about stopping The Eater of Souls.

"Come on, Sweetheart. Let's follow your friend." The bodybuilder orderly gave Marie's arm a tug. She was alone with the pair of orderlies and they were looking at her sternly.

"I'm not going," she said.

The man refused to release her arm. She tugged. He held on. "Doesn't work like that, Honey. You're here, you're getting the shot. Those are the orders."

-----

Once outside the jet, Ororo let her power stretch into the sky. When she touched the edges of her ability, she felt larger, stronger, more alive. That surge brought her no joy now. The last few days had left her feeling so powerless. She wanted to revel in the pleasure now. But, as she pushed off the roof, lingering confusion held her back.

What was she doing here? A large part of her agreed with Magneto's desire to destroy this abomination of a 'cure'. How had they become so separated from Charles' dream of unity that they actually fought other mutants to preserve a lab where they created such poison?

Haze hung thick around the battlefield below, cut only by the fuzzy glare from the surrounding floodlight towers. The taste of salt stung Ororo's tongue. Below that sharpness, she found the charred scents of burnt cloth and worse. The roar from the charging mutants rolled like surf over the concrete. Ororo reached high into the atmosphere, above the haze of salt water mist, for air that was clean and dry. Lightening crackled through her as she pulled down a true storm.

The reason for being here came clear to Ororo as the lightning played through her body. She couldn't do this to protect soldiers who cowered against the walls of the building. She certainly couldn't do it to protect the investments of a company that wanted to destroy them all, she told herself. No, she was doing this for a mutant boy who was held prisoner here, a boy Magneto would kill if he got the chance.

Ororo was here to save that child. That mission she embraced as thoroughly as she did her storm. She slammed the lightning into the ground in front of Magneto's army, making a place for her team to stand.

-----

Logan pulled the team into a line. He knew he had to keep his mind focused on the battle. He couldn't let himself be distracted by the fact that Jean was right up on the bridge or the fact he might have to kill her. Nor could he let the jumble of new, foreign memories she'd shoved into his brain at Magneto's camp overwhelm his thoughts. For once he couldn't be the loner. He was responsible for these kids now. For all his efforts, despite the fact Scott was still alive, he'd wound up with the leader's job. Damn it.

"Stay together, and hold this line," he shouted as he took his place. There was no time for strategy and damn little room to maneuver. This fight was going to take raw courage, and luck. A whole lot of luck given the odds. Logan had enough time to look up and down his troops, to see the looks of determination and fear on the younger faces, before the mob attacked.

He took out the first two opponents at once. A back swipe of his claws and the next fell. Combat came easily to him. He'd always thought that was instinct. Now, the chaos Jean had forced into his mind told him it was long decades of practice. He'd fought so many battles, he no longer had to think to kill.

Logan didn't let himself think about that fact too long. He noted that their line still held. The mass of Magneto's force threw themselves against Bobby's wall of ice, and against Peter's steel body. The boys held firm. Kitty managed to defend her bit of ground as well. Hank seemed to be everywhere at once. For a desk jockey, he fought pretty hard. Logan allowed himself to think they just might win this.

It was the other battle, the one with the monster possessing Jean that worried him. He didn't like having to trust Scott, alone and invisible, with so much. If he could just catch a glimpse, or a whiff of The Eater, he might have a clue how that struggle faired. Instinctively, he stretched out his senses even as he sliced down three more adversaries.

He swiped his claws backward wildly, striking at nothing before the sense of presence fully settled in his mind. A host of invisible combatants surrounded him. And then they vanished as quickly as they'd appeared. _Guess Scott's doing his job after all._

In a momentary lull, Logan realized he'd fought such unseen creatures before.

-----

Crouched at the edge of the roof, Scott swept his gaze back toward Logan. A half-dozen of The Eater's limbs shredded under his optic blasts. The disembodied souls of those Logan had killed glanced around uncertainly, then shambled off to the West. If the dead felt Scott's blasts, they didn't care. It was enough for Scott that The Eater was vulnerable to his power.

Almost enough. Even concentration on the battle hadn't eased Scott's sense of dread. This wasn't mere battle jitters. It was a true, deep fear, something Scott had never experienced before. And something he couldn't dwell on now. He forced his thoughts to stay on the battle.

At least Logan kept his carnage close to one spot. Hank sprang from one edge of the battlefield to the other. Scott knew the diplomat hated such violence. The fact that Hank participated with such fury meant he also understood how important it was that Magneto lose his war in its first battle.

Scott watched Beast leap. Another neck snapped when he landed. As Hank bounded away, Scott held his gaze on the downed mutant. He watched the dead man's spirit rise up from its corpse and look around in a sort of dazed wonder.

Before the spirit could take a step, The Eater folded one of its egg-heavy limbs up from the gravel-strewn ground to attack. Scott focused on the monster. Though his blasts fanned out in a wide arc, only the center point of his vision had enough force to kill the limbs. A peripheral blow only shoved the monster back.

He scored a direct hit on the egg sack, exploding the whole mass into wet jelly. The dead spirit startled, then simply turned West like all the rest had done. Scott searched the area for a new target.

Ororo lifted herself into the air. Her posture and the crackle of power around her told Scott Ororo the teacher had been overtaken by The Goddess of Storms. In another moment she'd be raining lightning bolts in all directions. Scott wondered how he would manage to catch all the resulting corpses before The Eater could claim the souls.

A dark shape appeared at the edge of his vision. Scott spun, half expecting one of The Eater's limbs rising to attack him. That tattooed woman had been next to Magneto a moment before. Now, she stood on the roof. Her mouth twisted in a half-smile. She dove off.

Her boot collided with Scott. The blow didn't slow her, but pain blackened his vision. Worse, he felt himself going over the edge with her, head first and with too much momentum for a soft landing. He grabbed wildly with his other hand. Strangely, the face that flashed through his mind as he thought he might die wasn't Jean's.

Somehow, he managed to catch the rail. He felt his shoulder separate under the strain. Numbness followed the intense pain as his overloaded nerve endings shut down. He clenched his fist, willing the fingers to stay locked around the rail. His back slammed into the wall below. He was pretty sure he heard a rib break, maybe two. _Probably better not to count at this point._

He forced himself to assess surroundings rather than his condition. The woman from the roof had tackled Ororo. They fought now on the ground below Scott's feet. He scanned the whole battlefield rapidly. No corpses seemed to be reviving. The Eater had yet to claim a prize.

But it would, soon, if he didn't get back into the fight. If one offspring survived, Scott's personal battle was lost. Jean's death would be irrelevant. Failure -- that was the source of Scott's persistent dread. He'd never felt so close to losing before. Not just losing Jean. Not just losing the battle. To losing … everything.

Which could not happen. It would not happen. He gritted his teeth. His fingers were slipping. He was going to fall, controlled or not. That made the choice easier. Hoping he'd land softly, Scott let go.

-----

Jean cradled Phoenix in her arms, trying to ignore the battle outside where her friends could be dying. Their needs continued to pull at her, but the tug grew weaker as she stroked Phoenix's hair. She couldn't recall feeling as whole as she did embracing her twin. She wanted to merge into one person, but couldn't quite move inside her other half. So, she just hugged Phoenix close.

The Eater would win out there anyway. Nothing could stop it now. And in a few minutes, or hours, nothing outside them would matter. Their body would be dead. _Will we be able to join then_, she wondered.

She should never have consented to Charles' plan to separate them. They should have been one person, one soul. Jean couldn't change the past any more than she could change what was happening in that distant battle. But she could prove to her other self that she meant was she'd said. She would never hate Phoenix again. In their last few minutes of life, she would get as close as she could to blending their souls.

Phoenix, however, refused to be coddled. She pulled out of Jean's embrace, then stood on her toes to look out their narrow window. The movement appeared so natural. The sight stabbed Jean with fresh regret. Her twin had obviously spent years tip-toed at that window and staring out at the world rather than living in it.

Phoenix's voice, however, sounded sure and strong. "They're both out there, aren't they? Logan and Scott."

"And the others," Jean agreed. The others couldn't matter now. There was no time for the outside world. She and her sister had so little life left. "They're all fighting Magneto."

"And the Eater."

"Maybe." It was she, Jean, who wanted the comfort of touch in these final moments. She loved the feeling of wholeness being close to Phoenix brought her. Now that her other self had moved away, Jean felt torn apart.

"Not maybe. They are, Jean. Feel the monster." Phoenix looked over her shoulder. Her eyes glittered with some emotion Jean couldn't quite place -- excitement perhaps. Whatever it was, Phoenix's former despair had lifted. "It's angry."

Jean got to her feet. She pressed a hand against the wall and tried to feel beyond their prison to the rest of their once-shared mind. The rage she received knocked her back to her knees. "Angry? It's enraged, blind with fury."

"Vulnerable," Phoenix said, and now Jean recognized the expression. Phoenix looked predatory. She felt a flicker of the emotion herself. They weren't so separate as she feared. _Still linked, still merging_. The thought sparked hope, but only for her and Phoenix. The rest of the world was still doomed. "It's never vulnerable. I tried and it only trapped me. It's playing with us. We can't kill it."

"Scott can, with Logan's help, and ours."

The sound of Scott's name still brought a little nudge of distress. She'd chosen Phoenix over him, but he still mattered to her. Jean climbed up to the window, as much to stand close to her sister than to see. She studied Phoenix's face rather than look out. Her sister looked strong, certain, as if she'd grown older since they'd touched.

Phoenix's gaze had fixed on Logan and Jean felt an odd bubble of jealousy form beneath her breastbone. "I thought you hated him. He was a monster. He murdered all those people in Viet Nam."

"I did, but you showed me the truth." Phoenix's green eyes, wide and earnest now, were so different from Jean's own -- a different window on the world and one she should have shared. "You showed me he had a reason. I looked at the memories again. Really looked."

"And?" _What would I have seen if I'd looked through both our eyes rather than only my simple brown ones?_ Jean couldn't help but imagine the world would have been very different.

"You were right. He killed them because they were possessed by Eaters. He sensed the truth."

Jean leaned closer, interested at last. "In Viet Nam?"

"The beginning of this, I guess. I should have known our Eater lied." Phoenix turned back to the outside world. "Logan's a good man after all."

"He is." Getting Phoenix to see that had been the goal. Jean knew she should be glad to have succeeded. Instead, she grieved the moment of intense closeness she'd lost when Phoenix decided the battle and The Eater took priority.

"So's Scott."

"I know that." Jean didn't want to think about Scott, or Logan, or the rest who struggled out there. She wanted the world to be just she and Phoenix. But, the world never cooperated with those sorts of desires. It pulled you back from your own needs relentlessly. Neither she nor Phoenix could die in peace if they abandoned the others.

"He's out there, " Phoenix said. "And he's in trouble. Look!"

The command forced Jean's gaze to the window and with the sight of mist and battle came the rush of sensation. She smelled the acid smoke and soot of fires, the sharp tang of sea air. It was cold out there, colder than it had a right to be in summer. She wondered if that was Ororo's doing. Dear god, Ororo, Logan, the students she saw them clearly now, fighting against a throng. Bodies lay everywhere. Scott fell into the midst of that chaos.

Jean had to squint to see him. He appeared more as a shimmer than solid mass. Like a ghost, yet one that reacted to the world around him. He dodged a flailing fist, ducked a swinging club. He held his left arm oddly. Dislocated, her physician's mind told her. He stumbled a bit too, though if his right leg were fractured she doubted he'd be able to stand.

He turned his head and looked straight at her. His eyes were like suns but she couldn't feel the pressure of his blasts. Regardless, she could see into the plane where she'd folded him clearly enough.

"Not seeing," Phoenix corrected. "Sensing, through out telepathic power."

Jean sent her a questioning look. "You can do that?"

"I learned to do lots of things with our power. I had to. The Eater doesn't know we can see. It doesn't know I can talk to you anywhere, not just when we're here together."

Why that last was important, Jean didn't know. Phoenix tugged on her sleeve and pointed out the window, refocusing their attention on Scott. Jean watched as the Eater tried to take a soul. The instant its egg-heavy limb appeared in Scott's plane, he destroyed it with his blasts. From beyond their prison, Jean felt The Eater tremble with fury.

"Scott's killing them," Phoenix explained unnecessarily. "It hates him for that."

Jean remembered The Eater's gloating plan -- take all the dead mutants from this battle for its offspring, make a new army from them, one bent only on obliteration. But, it was losing. Scott was killing the young before they could be born. He was beating the monster.

She felt their body shift, move a little closer to the combat and look down at Scott. She understood. The Eater was coaxing him closer. "It wants to distract him."

Phoenix shook her head. "It wants to turn his power off, like it did by the lake. Watch. It knows if it can get him close enough it can make him powerless."

Jean's stomach clenched. They couldn't let The Eater succeed in that goal. "What can we do?"

"You have to warn Scott not to get too close."

"How?"

"Tell him I'll bring him The Eater," Phoenix whispered, very close to Jean's ear. "I'm sorry. I will miss you in the next life."

Then she lifted Jean off her feet. Jean had one glimpse of her sister enveloped in glittering power before she was sailing up and out of their body. The wholeness she's so briefly enjoyed shattered.

-----

"What do you mean it doesn't work that way?" Marie resisted being pulled through the door into the back of the clinic, but the orderly was too strong for her. "This cure is supposed to be voluntary."

"And you volunteered when you got on that bus." The man shoved Marie inside. They were in a back hallway. To the left, Marie saw the storage room where they kept coolers filled with the drug.

The orderly pulled her to the right, around a corner, toward a row of what must be treatment rooms. The place reeked of antiseptic to the point Marie wondered what stench they were masking.

"Get the doc," the man called to his companion. "Tell him we've got a rush job."

_I can't let them do this._ Marie scanned the room for an escape route. The narrow room held an examination table, nothing more. The walls were cinderblock painted a sick pink. It was back through the door she'd just entered, through at least two brutish orderlies and who knew how many others, or nothing. The bodybuilder still gripped her arm so hard she thought his fingers must be bruising her bones. _There has to be something I can do to stop this._

And there was.

Marie stopped struggling. "Okay, I'll do it. Stop hurting me."

He didn't release his vice-grip. "Smart girl."

"I had a moment of panic. I'm okay now." She willed her body to sag a bit, make him think she'd lost will to argue. "Let me get my coat and gloves off, okay?"

No one had questioned her as to why she was wearing the heavy garments. They probably assumed she was hiding her mutation. She'd only have an instant once he noticed her skin was normally human.

The muscular orderly released his hold slowly. "Don't think about running, girlie. I'm faster than I look."

"Wouldn't think of it."_ I'm an X-man, and we don't run._ She dropped her coat on the floor and caught the middle finger of her right glove in her teeth. One pull freed her hand.

She smashed her fist into the orderly's face, breaking his nose and engaging her power at the same time. _We fight._

-----

_That landing could have been worse. If I were dead or unconscious it wouldn't have hurt so badly._ As encouraging thoughts went, Scott knew that one was a reach. He'd sustained serious injuries. When he stood, his right knee almost gave out. He must have twisted it. He couldn't feel his left arm, and every breath drove invisible spikes deeper into his chest. Still, he was on the ground, in one piece, and mobile.

Fortunately, he'd landed some distance away from Ororo's continuing fight. It was a bit mortifying to realize he'd probably be killed if the two small women rolled over him. A chain link fence and the remains of a crushed light tower obstructed his view of most of the combat.

A pair of Magneto's mutants ran toward him, fists flailing wildly. Scott had to duck out of their way even though it was clear they were more panicked than dangerous. When they passed, he looked up at the bridge where he'd last seen Jean standing. She was still there. That garish, un-Jean-like red costume was hard to miss despite the smoke and the dark. She was staring straight at him.

Her gaze hit him in the gut as if she'd had optic blasts of her own. The last time he'd seen her she'd been lying in the infirmary, pale and still with only her mind-voice to tell him she lived. It had been easy to convince himself she was gone. Now, she stood, too solid and real to be anything but alive. She took a few steps closer to the edge. Her steady gaze called to him. He wanted -- no needed -- to get to her, to touch her and prove or deny her existence.

The clang of twisting metal distracted him. Ororo had flung her opponent into the chain link fence. The fence buckled under the woman's body. He smelled ozone. Then lightning balled around Ororo's hands. She sent several arcs into the metal. The woman's body jerked, then stilled. Scott knew what to expect next.

The tattooed woman's spirit rose slowly out of her chest, right above her heart. The spirit shimmered slightly, then solidified into the exact image of her body. She looked down at her corpse in confusion. "I'm not supposed to be dead. He promised we'd win."

She meant Magneto. Scott couldn't keep the disgust out of his voice. "He lied, not for the first time."

She spun on her heel to face him. It was a combat move that made Scott instinctively crouch into defense. There was no need. She didn't attack, only stared at him with a mix of anger and frustration on her face. "It's not right."

"It never is."

The Eater chose that moment to strike. Scott sensed rather than saw two limbs shoot up from the pavement behind him to arch toward her. He got off a sloppy shot that sheered both stems below the egg sack. A second blast crushed the young into the cement.

The woman's spirit never moved. Instead she studied the oozing remains at her feet. Then, she knelt and tapped a severed fang with her finger. She couldn't pick it up, however. Apparently, her spirit didn't have enough substance.

The woman looked up at him. "I know what this does. I know what everything does. This would heal my body and bring me back to life."

He nodded. That's pretty much what the fang that stabbed him earlier had done.

"I'm dead." Her expression was all determination and demand. "I don't want to be dead."

Jean would have felt obligated to save her -- doctor's oath and all. Scott knew he wasn't bound by those ethics. He wanted to simply refuse to help her. She'd tried to kill Ororo. She'd nearly killed him. She'd joined Magneto's cause, for all he knew wholeheartedly and with full knowledge that he was a monster too. She deserved what had happened to her.

But, Scott couldn't be that cold a bastard. He found he couldn't stare the woman in the face and tell her she had to be dead whether she liked it or not. When her harsh expression turned to panic and she whispered, "Please?", he took a step closer.

The sounds of battle had grown quiet. As far as Scott could tell, Magneto's mutant army was retreating. If he did save this woman's life, how much harm could she do? The fang would leave her unconscious long enough for authorities to restrain her.

He reached down and picked up the fang. It was curved and black, as long as his palm. The sac containing its healing ichor was clearly full and intact in the hollow shaft still connected to the fang. Healing her would do no harm that he could see. And yet, it seemed wrong, out of the order of things, to revive the dead.

As if she were coming to understand that fact as well, her spirit backed slowly away from him. Her head ducked. Sorrow and loss flashed across her face. Then she turned West and started to walk away from her body. As she left, he watched her spirit lose its distinct shape, finally dissipating into a warm, amber light.

Scott let his gaze shift from the place where she had been to Magneto's fleeing army and then to the bridge. Jean stood there at the very edge -- but not one Jean. Two. Jean's spirit stood separate from her body.

Scott knew what that meant. The Eater remained. But, Jean was truly dead.

* * *

End note: Next chapter concludes Alcatraz, but not the story. We still have a way to go with this. 


	15. Chapter 15

Note: Alcatraz concludes here. Throughout this story I have tried to stick as close as possible to the actual movie where scenes overlapped. Up until now, I think I did a fair job of that. But here, well, no. I just could not make the second half of the Alcatraz fight work at all. It was just too ... lame. So, this is totally different. Hope you like it.

Disclaimer: I still don't own X-men

Oh, and very brief language warning here -- only included because there's been so very little swearing in this, but Logan just needed that word.

* * *

Chapter Fifteen

Marie bit back a cry as the orderly's thoughts assaulted her. His shock at being punched slammed into her first. The need to pick up laundry for his wife, worry about the kids' report cards and fights in school followed. Then, his name -- Edgar. Under it all Edgar's deep fear of mutants rumbled.

Edgar's invasion excited the other personalities she'd absorbed. Magneto's dark fears growled and Bobby's confused love clung to her momentarily. She struggled with John's fears of inadequacy. Logan's presence steadied her. He led her to her combat lessons.

_Keep aware of your surroundings. It's okay to be afraid, but not to panic. Keep moving._ She had to keep moving.

Edgar's collapse broke their contact and with it the flood of his personality into her. From him, she'd learned the maze of streets surrounding the clinic and how to unlock the back door. Marie grabbed the badge clipped to Edgar's lanyard. _Keep moving._ She headed for the hallway.

The doctor came through the door just as she opened it. His eyes went wide when he saw her. He had a metal tray in his hand. The cure hypodermic and some swabs rested on top. Marie caught the tray with her knee and sent it flying. _Remember, from the core, not the knee. _She kicked the doctor solidly in the chest.

He fell back into the hallway, hit the far wall. _That worked better than it does on Peter,_ Marie thought. But, she couldn't muse on how well the techniques worked. She had to get away before the staff could organize and trap her. The sound of that tray rattling against the tile would bring someone fast. Marie sprinted toward the back door.

She swiped Edgar's badge in a practiced move, also borrowed from him, and let the door lock again behind her. The bus was gone. Good, no driver to point out which route she took to the clinic workers, police, or army. What next? What had she learned about escape?

First task was to get as far away as possible. If they were going to come after her, she needed to make their search area as big as she could. This late at night the alley was empty. Likely the streets were as well. Marie wished momentarily she'd thought to go out the front. She might have stolen some useful mutant ability to help with her escape.

Too late now. She had to rely on Edgar's memory of the back alleys he'd use to sneak away for a smoke and to avoid the crowds of anti-cure mutants on his way home from work. Marie kept moving as fast and silently as she could. She listened as hard as she could for the sounds of pursuit.

None ever came. Perhaps the clinic had been open illegally, or they simply decided she wasn't important enough to chase. Whatever the reason, Marie was grateful when, after twenty minutes of stealth, she felt she could relax a bit and assess her situation.

She'd lost her purse and her coat, was broke and far from home. But, she felt -- amazing.

She'd used her powers with purpose, fought and won. She knew everything she'd experienced with Scott a the mansion was real. He did need her. The team needed her. Everything in life wasn't pointless and cruel. _I matter. What I can do matters._ For the first time, she believed that completely. _I belong. I really am an X-man._

-----

Scott stared at the two Jeans on the bridge, perfect doubles, and his chest found a new reason to ache. He'd known this loss was coming. He'd come to terms with it as the jet settled over Alcatraz. But, staring at Jean dead was different from knowing she would die. This was no longer inevitability. It was fact. And it opened a chasm inside him.

He turned his attention from the spirit-Jean to the physical one. That body now held only the Eater of Souls. The last of his hesitation vanished. He could kill the monster without regret now. He wouldn't be killing Jean.

If he could get close enough to the thing, threaten it enough, maybe he could force it to fold itself into his plane of existence. Scott limped toward the bridge.

"Scott! No, wait!" Spirit-Jean called to him. "Don't get close. That's what it wants."

He turned toward her. "What it wants?"

Jean began picking her way over the broken pavement. She passed Magneto, who never noticed her spirit as he surveyed the rout of his army. Logan and the team had done a great job, though they still had to face the mastermind of this battle. Scott told himself he'd praise them, if he made it out of Alcatraz alive.

Pain slowed his progress. Jean reached the base of the rubble pile that had once been part of a tower and the bridge before he'd managed to cross half the yard. She looked so real, so alive. She saw him, heard him, and when she reached for him, her arms closed around him.

"God, I never thought we'd touch again," she whispered. Her voice carried a variety of emotions -- relief and peace and love. But, Scott didn't feel the same merging he'd always associated with Jean's embrace. He gritted his teeth because even the gentle hug sent knives into his lungs.

"Ribs," he managed. She released him and began probing with physician's fingers. He pushed her hands away. "No time, Jean. We have to deal with the Eater."

"You're hurt."

_Dead,_ he almost said, because his injuries could be fatal. But, that wasn't true. He was far from dead. He carried healing in the form of the Eater's severed fang. _Later,_ he told himself, _when the monster is dead and the fight over, I can save myself with that._ He'd pass out soon after injecting himself. For now, he had to bear the pain and fight. "Everyone here is doomed if the Eater doesn't die. You know that."

"I do." She looked up at her body. "So does Phoenix. We have a plan."

Overhead he heard a metallic wail, then the roar of an igniting flame. An instant later a burning truck hurled over them.

Scott dove for cover, taking Jean with him. They landed hard. The fireball crashed and the ground under them rolled with the impact. For a moment, Scott couldn't breathe. His body wouldn't take much more of that sort of punishment. He leaned closer to Jean. "What's the plan?"

-----

For Bobby the chaos of battle proved both exciting and terrifying. Terror added significance to combat. This wasn't a game. This was real life and death, putting yourself on the line for something important. Victory brought exhilaration, but he was disappointed when the last of the combatants ran up over the twisted, ripped bridge and disappeared into the mists.

_I'm finally a real X-man. Rogue is going to be proud of me._ That last flooded him with warmth despite the chill of his activated powers. No more feeling like a kid, or a failure. _I won a war here._

Then the sky overhead lit gold. Magneto wasn't finished, though his army fled. The battle continued.

Bobby felt a tight grin pull his jaw. This wasn't going to be like Storm's Danger Room exercise where all they could do was run and hide. Logan was in charge and he'd told them to hold and win. Bobby intended to do exactly that.

He couldn't see the make of the vehicle Magneto had shot skyward. All Bobby saw from below was the dark undercarriage and Pyro's flames, but he followed the trajectory. He fired a blast of ice to intercept.

His ice stream killed the car's momentum. The mass of metal and ice hovered an instant, then fell. Bobby had to duck out of the way as the frozen auto shattered against the ground. He stared back at Magneto, who stood so stiff and outraged on his mound of rubble. _Suck it up, asshole._

The ground rumbled. Bobby caught a flash of silver to his left. Peter was bounding over broken rock and twisted girders toward the bridge.

-----

Logan spun, tracking Peter. The young man charged Magneto, and Logan's mind cut straight to the Danger Room where he'd filled in for Scott what seemed a lifetime ago. That had been a game. But, had his bravado then taught the kids to be reckless? He stared, terrified that Magneto would tear Peter's metal body apart.

Certainly, that was the madman's intent. He swung his arm up and fisted his hand tight. Peter kept right on charging. Magneto had to scramble back. He put Pyro between himself and the steel giant bearing down on him. Pyro washed Peter with flame, obscuring Logan's view of the combat. Logan took the moment to access the rest of his team.

Bobby had frozen the first car, then ducked, but he looked eager to take on more. Storm studied the battleground, calm and prepared. This wasn't her first combat. She showed no hint of the indecision that so recently plagued her. He turned back toward the bridge and Peter.

McCoy landed heavily behind him. "Rasputin's body doesn't respond to magnetism the way normal ferrous metal does. It is more like flesh in that respect. I've always assumed this is--"

"We've got to stop that crackpot before he kills someone." Logan severed the lecture. "Can you get behind him? Cut him off?"

"I can try."

Pyro's fire had barely slowed Peter. After another moment, the big man's steel body emerged from the wall of fire. One blow crumbled Pyro. But, Magneto had used the distraction to vanish.

"Storm? Can you find him?" Logan called into the communication link.

She'd been back behind a tall chain link fence, but she rose now into the air. "Searching."

-----

Ororo put her power to work clearing the mists around the bridge, exposing Magneto as he darted down the span. The sight disappointed. This was the threat they'd all feared. He looked like a frighten old man, staggering a little as he shoved cars out of his path. So much for the master of the world.

Peter wasn't being subtle. He pursued over the cars in heavy leaps. Ororo had two thoughts at once. She'd have to remind the team about excessive property damage for one. More importantly, the moment looked dangerous to her. Any moment now, Lensherr would lose his panic, if he really was panicked at all. He could still use the vehicles as weapons, and Peter was too far out from the rest of the team to assist. This could be a trap.

She risked a lightning strike on the bridge in front of Magneto. He turned and looked at her. Somewhere in the fight or flight he'd lost his helmet and his white hair stood out starkly against this dark cape. "You're fools," he shouted at her. "Puppets! All of you!"

_He might well be right,_ she thought. The creators of this cure and the government that supported them were no friends to mutants. Still, that didn't make Magneto's answer right.

Ororo caught sight of Hank swinging between the twisted bridge supports in a move to intercept. Good. Between the three of them -- Peter, Hank, and herself -- they should be able to manage a capture. She shifted her position more to the right to cover that retreat option. Magneto had collected himself after his outburst and began lifting himself into the air.

"I'll distract him," she whispered into the comm. to Hank.

But, then Magneto turned his attention to the far end of the bridge. Through the darkness, Ororo saw soldiers swarming forward from the mainland.

"They'll cure you all too!" Magneto shouted at her.

That might be true as well. Evidence at the battleground suggested that the cure weapons shot a barrage rather than single, aimed darts. The soldiers probably wouldn't care if they hit her too while trying to take down Magneto. Still, she couldn't retreat. They would have to capture Magneto before the troops arrived. "Then we'll have to give them no reason to shoot."

"As if I were the only threat." He sounded smug then, and his gaze pointedly shifted to a spot behind Ororo. "How do you think she'll respond to them?"

Jean. He meant Jean. Ororo remembered the fight in the Greys' old house, the building lifting off its foundation, the professor. This had been Magneto's retreat plan all along? If he failed in his efforts, he'd incite Jean to a destructive rampage that would sever human and mutant factions forever? "Damn you."

She swirled herself in winds and swooped back toward Alcatraz. She'd forgotten The Eater and the real risk they had to stop here. "Peter! Hank! Get back. Logan, company is coming and we have a situation with Jean and the monster. Regroup."

-----

"They're not running," Scott said to Jean. His junior team, frightened children in the past, fought bravely when called upon. Even if he couldn't lead them, he could enjoy the momentary lump of pride in his throat.

"They never were cowards to duck and hide their heads just because a few missiles fly," Jean told him, but her gaze never left the mirror of herself standing near the very end of the bridge. "Still, bravery won't save them if The Eater erupts in violence. Its rage is close to the breaking point. You've killed all its children."

"But, it's still alive." Now that Magneto wasn't tossing cars around, they could crawl up the broken debris pile and onto the bridge. Scott gritted his teeth against the fire in his chest. He put the Eater fang into his pocket. He couldn't heal himself yet. He still had work to do before he could let himself pass out.

"It isn't aware of us right now." Jean reached the bridge first. "I think it lost track of you when we took cover from Magneto's barrage."

Scott pulled himself up after her. "You can still read its thoughts? Even when you're--" How the hell was he supposed to express what she was correctly? Spirit? Ghost? Or just--

"Dead, you mean?" Jean wrapped an arm around him when he stumbled. The support reminded him of their almost-escape from Alkali Lake. That was the last time they really touched. He'd been so sure, in that moment, they were past the worst of things. He'd had so much hope.

"I suppose."

"It's Phoenix. She's still inside our body, so all of my spirit isn't free. The Eater won't let her go."

"When she dies, it dies," Scott guessed.

"I wish it were that simple." Jean paused and Scott wondered if she was getting this information from Phoenix. "An Eater hosted by a normal human is difficult enough to kill once mature. Along with their young, they develop healing spars that they use to restore their host bodies after injury. Still, if you can separate the host soul from its body long enough, the Eater will dissipate with that soul."

Scott remembered the tattooed woman Ororo killed. Her soul had shed form until it was only light. He nodded.

"But this Eater has Phoenix's power," Jean continued. "That power extends beyond the normal world into this plane as well. Neither of us has any idea what this Eater will be able to do even after all our souls have departed the body."

"That means I'll have to kill The Eater here, on this plane, even after --" He forced himself to say it. "--After your body is dead."

"Yes." Short, direct, and filled with more uncertainty than he had ever heard her voice.

"You don't think I can."

"Phoenix does."

"Then believe her." Scott had to believe. Uncertainty now would kill them all. Still, it bothered him that Jean didn't share her twin's confidence.

"But, whatever you do, don't get too close to it. If you do, it can turn off your power like it did at Alkali Lake."

The thought he had been kissing The Eater rather than either Jean or Phoenix on that lake shore disgusted him. He pushed that feeling aside. "How close is too close?"

Jean stared at him with troubled eyes. "I don't know."

-----

Logan heard Ororo's call to regroup. "Storm, what's going on?"

"Government troops." She sounded a little breathless. "You've got to get to Jean, now."

_Jean._ He felt his throat constrict. Ororo's meaning was clear. She wanted him to kill Jean before she hurts someone else. But, Jean hadn't participated in the battle. Whatever her reason for holding back -- The Eater of Soul's reason, he reminded himself -- Jean wasn't the enemy.

Logan understood what Scott had told them about The Eater of Souls, how it was controlling Jean and it wanted death and carnage and to spread its young. But, Scott had been taking care of that during the battle, hadn't he? The Eater should be defeated. It should be over.

Storm's winds ruffled his hair. She landed beside him softly, rested a hand on his shoulder. "Magneto is gone. We lost him. But, it will only be a minute before those troops swarm the bridge."

"Hank told the president we're the good guys," Logan replied. "They've no reason to shoot at us."

"And just how are they supposed to know that we're the mutants the president told them about? Hank, yes, probably. His face has been in the papers enough. But, I'm not willing to stand here with my hands up in the air and hope none of those soldiers are trigger happy."

She had a point. "Or have a grudge against mutants. I get it, Storm. Round everyone up and get them out of here. I'm getting Jean."

"Logan."

He knew what she meant. She thought there was no hope, no future. "I'm going to get her. We'll bring her home. Maybe we can figure out how to dislodge this Eater thing in the lab. We've got to try."

Her mouth tightened. "You know what needs to be done."

"According to who exactly?"

"Scott."

"Well, he doesn't know everything, does he?" Or maybe he did. Logan only knew, looking at Jean standing there, he had to try.

"Logan," Ororo began, but whatever warning she had for him, died unspoken. They heard the soldiers before they saw them swarm to a high point on the bridge. There was a single loud snap as a hundred weapons locked and loaded.

Logan cursed. This was going to be bad.

"Too late," Ororo whispered.

"Get the kids. Get them out of here. We don't want anyone shot."

"What about Scott?"

He turned his gaze back to Jean. Her posture screamed fury. That was the monster's anger. Logan would bet money on it. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew. The Eater wasn't defeated yet. It still had Jean. "I don't think he's finished his job yet."

Logan moved from his semi-concealed position, still in a crouch, and scrambled for cover closer to the bridge. No weapons pivoted toward him. The army's attention remained locked on Jean. _Whatever you do, sweetheart, don't give them reason to shoot,_ he coaxed, though he wasn't sure she could hear his thoughts. _Let's just get out of here. Then we can fix things._

He crept closer still. But, he knew, as sure as he knew the monster still controlled Jean, that the soldiers wouldn't hold fire. He wouldn't reach her in time. He hated the feeling he couldn't move fast enough, shout loud enough. "Jean. Put your hands up. Surrender. They won't hurt you."

She wouldn't, of course. Jean didn't control her own body. A whirlwind of debris began to spiral around her. The report of all those rifles shook the stones.

She caught every dart. For just an instant Logan saw the tiny spears glittering in the false light, frozen.

-----

_No!_ Phoenix's thought hit Jean like a hammer to the center of her forehead. At the same moment, she heard Scott curse beside her. He flinched as the soldiers fired and she caught his thoughts as well. Those darts would tear right through his body._ I'll die before killing it,_ was his way of putting it.

To Jean's eyes, the telekinetic energy from The Eater exploded as a visible shockwave rippling through the air. It caught the projectiles. Stilled them. Shattered them.

_Jean,_ Phoenix wailed. _I can't control it. It's so angry. Its babies are dead. It can't make more. Dreams gone. Hope gone. Reasons gone!_

_Reasons? Reasons for what?_

_Reasons for restraint._

"Dear God."

"What?" Scott struggled against the wind The Eater was kicking up around them. He reached for a crumpled girder thrust upward out of the concrete and held on with his good arm. Jean thought he looked too pale, too weak. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. "What's she doing?"

"Not Phoenix. The Eater. It's making its own Grand Dying." She sensed the monster's thoughts -- whether through Phoenix or her own mind, Jean couldn't be sure. The Eater reveled in the promise of unrestrained death. For the first time unfettered, it felt joy. Once, she'd thought Magneto was a monster. Now, she saw monster all the way down to the soul, and all other evil looked small, sad, and insignificantly human.

"How do we stop it?" Scott called. He clung to his anchor, muscles clenched, teeth gritted. His eyes were suns. Those eyes. Jean remembered telling him, many times, she wished she could look at his eyes. She'd thought she meant to see him with power controlled, normal. But, she'd really meant like this, full on, deadly. She'd wanted to see him as he really was rather than shielded and safe.

Now, however, looking at him her only thought was, _If he dies, the Eater will destroy Phoenix._ It wanted to, if only to keep the two of them apart forever. She felt that in the midst of its tirade. Scott was the only weapon who could stop it.

"It's up to her, Scott. She's got to fold it into this place for you." She's got to escape our body, was the part she didn't say.

A cyclone of hatred expanded around The Eater. Chunks of metal and concrete spun past Jean, never quite touching her. The wind barely ruffled her hair. But then, she was spirit not flesh.

"Another moment and I'm not going to be here." Scott's voice was a determined growl grinding out through his teeth. She saw how white his hand was locked around his metal support. He seemed to root his legs by will alone.

_Phoenix! I need a calm space here!_

_I can't. I have to hold the monster._

_You must!_

Jean saw as well as felt the bubble encircle them. Scott sagged with relief against the post. When he coughed there was more blood, but he kept his feet under him. Outside their haven, the ground rumbled. The soldiers -- the entire troop -- turned to ash before Jean's eyes. Most of the bridge's towering supports followed. A gut-souring wail of metal preceded the roar of ocean. The entire span collapsed into the bay.

-----

Logan strained to hear the Blackbird's engines over the collapse of the bridge. He needed Ororo and the kids to be safely out of this before Hell grabbed them. The engine hum rose briefly, then deepened into a low growl as the jet, still cloaked, headed toward the mainland. Logan's jaw unclenched. He let his muscles loosen and move again. _Good. Alone again. Responsible only for myself._

_And for Jean,_ he reminded himself. Much as he would have liked to be truly alone, he still had responsibilities to Jean. And to the team. To the whole damn world.

Logan continued his slow crawl toward Jean. It was a true crawl now, on all fours and using his claws to anchor himself to the pavement. The whirlwind touched the sky and pulled at clouds. The island under him shook so deep the rumble barely registered on his ears. He drove his claws into a broken girder, then the remains of a block wall. Chips of stone danced against the metal. He felt the vibrations all the way into his wrists.

Another minute and Alcatraz was going to shake to pieces.

He dragged himself up over the edge of the rubble pile. To his left he noticed an eddy of calm in the storm. Logan almost diverted his path. He wanted one lungful of air that wasn't heavy with dust. But, he had to get to Jean before… before what?

_Destruction,_ a small voice in his head finished. The voice didn't belong to him.

Logan's ears popped. Thunder boomed behind him. He squinted over his shoulder. Not thunder -- the laboratory building no longer existed. It wasn't collapsing, wasn't falling. It had been obliterated. The collapse of air into that vacuum generated that sudden clap. There had been people in there, people who thought they were safe. His heart accelerated.

_Logan help me!_The voice was stronger this time, Jean's and yet not.

"Who are you?"

_Phoenix._ With the word came the image of a face in his mind, Jean but younger. This was the face that had flashed in his mind the first moment attraction sparked between himself and Jean. This was the face he saw she they kissed in the woods above Alkali Lake. Phoenix -- not Jean.

The whole confusing triangle of himself, and Jean, and Scott fit together now. He'd fallen in love with Phoenix. It seemed foolish to have to admit._ I thought you were Jean._

He felt her laughter flutter against his own heart. She could laugh and ask him to kill her in the same moment -- no wonder he loved her.

He wanted to close his eyes so he could study that face without external distraction. He didn't dare give in to that temptation. Fissures opened and closed in the ground around him so rapidly it looked like the island was gasping through a hundred mouths. A wrong move and he'd fall in to be chewed flat.

"What can I do, Phoenix? How can I help?"

_Kill me._

_No._ The refusal came all the way from his bones. It was primal, elementary.

_You have to kill me so we can destroy the monster._

Damned duty again. Logan was sick to death of it. When was it his turn to be selfish?_ Let the world die. I haven't had even an hour with you._

_You don't mean that._

He didn't mean it. But, fuck it all, he wanted to mean it.

Logan could see her clearly now, through the storm of dust and debris. Her face was gray and dead, her hands talons. Her eyes were black and even more dead than her decaying skin. Red hair twisted about her like red snakes, or flame. A medusa. A monster. Where those thoughts came from, Logan wasn't sure. The images felt foreign, not his, not Phoenix's.

At least the body he had to destroy looked very little like the cherished image in his mind. That should make this easier. He stood, and the monster's gaze fell on him. He felt its hate, hot as tar. Logan fisted his hands. "Come on. See if you can kill me."

"Kill you?" Its voice rattled like dry sticks. "I will obliterate you."

Knives hurt, bullets hurt. There were no human words for what that blast of power did to him. People didn't live through that sort of agony to bring back descriptions. Logan tucked his chin and walked forward through the torment.

Alcatraz separated under his feet. The island simply fell apart. Logan had to leap to catch hold of Jean's ankle as her body lifted into the air. His weight never slowed her ascent. They soared up the center of The Eater's funnel cloud where the freight train roar of the wind beat against his eardrums.

Logan used her body like a ladder, climbing ankle to knee to wrist. Then when they were face to snarling face, he clamped an arm around her waist. The monster spit and bit. Her nails went straight through his leather sleeve into his arm.

_Logan now!_

He closed his eyes and Phoenix's face filled his mind. Kill this monster struggling in his arms and she would be gone to. Forever. He clutched the furious body closer._ I can't._

_You have to. Look_.

He sensed the terrible force inside her. The monster stretched its power to the limit, up into the sky, down into the ground, searching for weakness to exploit. In the distance, he watched the sparkling city go dark. Then the creature found a long seam in the Earth to the city's East. That hot and jagged wound quivered at a single touch of power. Logan knew what that fault was, what it would do if The Eater opened it

He squeezed his eyes shut tight, the only way he could hug Phoenix's image to him. And he drove his claws through the monster's heart.

A moment only, they hung suspended in the sky. He felt the wind died. The body in his arms convulsed once. Then they were falling and falling, falling far into the black water with no island left to catch them. _Maybe_, Logan thought,_ this time I really will get to die._

-----

"Where the Hell are they?" Scott swore.

Alcatraz had atomized around them. In the darkness, Scott couldn't see if any part of the island remained beyond the upright needle on which he and Jean stood. Phoenix's protective shield saved them, but now Scott couldn't find Logan, or The Eater, in the maelstrom of waves and wind surrounding them.

"He's killed our body!" Jean pointed skyward. In the same moment the wind died and all Scott could hear was the wet sound of debris falling into the water.

He stared up. At this distance, his optic blasts would have little or no effect, however. "I need to pinpoint The Eater, Jean. And I can't see it."

A dark shape plummeted. He tracked the movement only to lose all sight of them in a quick white splash of foam out in the bay.

"I'll get them." Jean dove from their perch. She floated slowly until Scott lost sight of her too, against the dark water.

He staggered as close to the edge as he dared. Too close and he could fall. Already, his head throbbed and felt too light. He didn't like the sharp metallic tang that flooded his mouth when he coughed. His lungs crackled like packing plastic. At least the pain had left his shoulder and knee, but then so had all other sensations. _Hurry, Jean, _he thought,_ I don't have long to wait._

The stench of The Eater -- that death stink he'd hated from the first -- hit him. Then the thing itself was in his face. If his eyes had been closed, he would have been dead before expelling a breath. The monster fought his optic blasts with all the force it could find. Scott felt the blasts' pressure pound against his own body. But, his power couldn't hurt him.

Then, he found his focus. The creature's eyes swiveled toward him. He stared it eye to eye. For one horrible moment he looked all the way down into the thing's mind.

The Eater of Souls exploded. The shreds of its body disappeared into the sea.

Scott couldn't move for several minutes. The shock of seeing that alien, evil mind stunned him still. Thought returned first. _I killed it. It's gone. It's over._

Then, he realized his how precariously he knelt at the edge of the pillar. He sank back until he sat on the stone. He was still alive. The others? _Jean? Phoenix?_

_Here Scott._ The voice that answered belonged to neither Jean nor Phoenix. He looked up to see her hovering in the air. She studied him in a stranger's way, friendly but distant. And he knew -- his Jean was already gone. So was Phoenix. They were one soul now, a soul that had never loved him, or Logan.

_Is Logan all right?_

_He will be. They are coming for you both._

He didn't need to ask if she was leaving. He knew in a moment she would turn to the West and vanish the way the tattooed woman had. There was no time to whisper regret that he'd never known her as she should have been or that he never would. Apology had no purpose. Grief even less.

_I'm going to miss you_. He kept that thought to himself as he watched her unfold into light.

Her brightness lingered as a shadow on his eyes far longer than in reality.


	16. Chapter 16

Note: Though the Alcatraz fight is over and with it the part of Shadow Man that overlaps X3, the story itself still has a way to go. For those who were thinking (hopefully not wishing) that the story was nearly over, not quite. I loosely estimate I have about 30K more of 'stuff' to write. Hope everyone is willing to stick through to the end with me.

Disclaimer: As always, I don't own X-men. People with money do.

* * *

Chapter Sixteen

Ororo's fingers tightened on the controls as she guided the jet to a vertical landing on the flat roof of one of the city's skyscrapers. Which building, she couldn't tell. The lights of the city had winked out during her approach. For landing, she relied on instruments and a single spotlight fitted to the belly of the Blackbird.

She would rather have been out in the bay with Logan where she could fight the monster for control of that insane storm. Leaving a team member alone in combat went against everything she'd been taught and believed. _I can go back as soon as I get the others to safety_.

The wind, whipping in from the bay, made landing tricky. The jet wanted to buck and twist. Ororo was glad she's put Hank in the very back with the boy, Jimmy, where the child's nullification power couldn't affect her own abilities. She needed to steady the air around the Blackbird as it descended. Once the landing gear touched down, however, the storm died. Ororo's heart skipped. Was this the end, or just a breath before total annihilation?

"We should go back." Bobby unstrapped himself from his harness and jumped to his feet.

Kitty sat next to Ororo in the copilot's seat. She wasn't certified to fly, but she was good with the readouts, and Hank had wanted to comfort Jimmy. "Logan told us to get out, Bobby. He didn't think it was safe."

"It wasn't," Hank agreed as the women left the cockpit. He had an arm around Jimmy who sat beside him hugging a blanket.

"And it probably still isn't." Ororo studied Hank's very human face. It had been so long since she'd seen that face. Age had pulled his jaw from sharp to fleshy, but she still liked looking at him. He'd managed to close his old uniform too, and looked very content. She didn't want to do what she knew she had to. "I don't want to put any of you back into danger, but we do have to go back for Logan and Scott."

"Which means I have to go with you." Hank uncoiled his arm from around the boy and unzipped his jacket.

It relieved her that she didn't have to ask. "I might need to you fly the jet, Hank."

"What about us?" Bobby stubbornly crossed his arms.

Ororo shook her head. "The three of you stay here. Look after Jimmy. Stay out of sight and don't let anyone take him."

Bobby looked like he might protest, but Peter rested a hand on his shoulder. "A good soldier takes orders."

Hank helped them get Jimmy outside the jet. When he returned a moment later, blue fur once again covered his face, his hands, and ran all the way down his exposed chest.

"I'm sorry," she told him.

"Don't be." His voice was soft and full of secrets she knew he'd never again speak. "Best get back into it."

For an instant old sorrows rose. She pushed them down. He was right. Back to the job was best.

Ororo returned to the pilot's seat and waited for Hank to take his place at co-pilot. The windshield was a black mirror, no lights beyond to guide them, not even the moon. Clouds, drawn in by the unnatural storm that had raged only moments earlier, hid the stars. Ororo could wipe those away with a thought. But, she wanted to get a better sense of what was happening out there before adding her own power into the situation. "Looks like we're still on instruments for now."

"It's going to be hard to see them out there with only the one spotlight."

"That's the other reason I needed you, Hank." Ororo didn't know what had happened to Alcatraz, but the sense she'd gotten from the storm as it raged hadn't been good. "I don't know what we'll find out there."

"Logan is hard to kill."

"Scott isn't." That Hank didn't answer troubled her more than anything he might have said. She kept her eyes on the controls. "You don't think we'll find him again."

"I think it's highly unlikely."

Ororo didn't want to believe him, but as they reached the place were the island should have been her hope sank. Alcatraz was simply gone. Ocean so dark it looked like a void, spread to the horizon. Only the occasional white crests speeding through their search light gave her any sense that there was water down there.

"What happened here?"

"The most powerful mutant ever born happened, Ororo." He sounded solemn. Then, he straightened in his seat, pointing. "There. In the water there."

Logan was in the water, clinging to something dark and lean, but very solid. He held up an arm, signaling. Ororo settled the jet into a hover over the spot while Hank went to the back and tossed down ropes. Within a few moments, they'd hauled up a shivering Logan and a very lifeless Jean.

As soon as the hatch was closed, Ororo put Hank at the controls. Her need to see and touch was emotional, but she indulged the desire anyway. She felt entitled.

"I killed her," Logan whispered when she reached for him. She watched a muscle in his jaw twitch, and he swung his head to the side so he wouldn't meet her gaze. "It's done. But, I wasn't leaving her to sink. I couldn't."

"I know you couldn't." She wanted to hold him, but everything in his stance said he wouldn't appreciate the contact just now. Ororo hugged herself instead.

He had a rough blanket wrapped around his shoulders. A puddle formed around his boots. She couldn't remember ever seeing him shiver before. "The monster just wiped the whole island away. It's all gone. Everyone there."

_Scott too._ She trembled. Logan stood there, shaky from the chill water and too pale. She didn't want to force him to confirm what she guessed to be true, given what he'd been through.

But, she couldn't leave without making certain. They'd abandoned Scott for dead once. She couldn't do it again. "Logan, did Scott kill the monster? Was he still there at the end? You're the only one who can feel him or help us find him?"

He sank into a seat and lowered his head. "I lost him. There was a calm spot in the storm, up on the island while there still was an island. Now, there's nothing left."

Somehow, she found her way back to the cockpit. After taking the controls back from Hank, Ororo made another swing around the area. She couldn't leave without trying. But, she could see nothing in the darkness. Even after she pulled back the clouds it was too dark. Starlight couldn't illuminate that void.

She supposed it had been too much to hope for that that the whole team would return from this mission.

-----

"This looks like a nice school." The heavy-set woman barely glanced over at Marie, who sat next to her in the passenger seat of the battered Toyota. "That only means you have so much more to live for. You remember what I said. Hitchhiking is dangerous and you could get into trouble very easily. Not every ride you find will be as nice as I am."

"Yes, ma'am," Marie acceded, though she knew she'd never been at risk. Mrs. Halcroft had been nice enough to drive a half an hour out of her way to make sure Marie reached home safely, and the only price was a non-stop lectures on the dangers women faced in the world. "I won't do it again."

"See that you don't." Mrs. Halcroft made a tisking noise in the back of her throat. "Pretty young woman like you out on the road alone at night. With all the news of perverts these days, who knows what could happen?"

"Thanks again." Marie got out of the car and waved. She waited until Mrs. Halcroft turned her car around and headed back to the main road before she turned to face the tall, metal gates.

_It's good to be home,_ she thought. Xaviers was home to the woman she'd become. Her parents' faded mansion, to which she'd so longed to escape just a few days ago, belonged to a frightened girl. Marie was no longer that person. She didn't even miss her long coat and scarf as much as she'd thought she would. The day was warm and it felt good to let the sun touch her skin.

Marie followed the drive a little way then cut across the lawn. She wanted to enter the way she left, through the heavy front doors. The gardens were full of fragrance. 'Summer heavy,' her grandmere would have called it, the blossoms all weighted and hanging down and the grass as thick as it could grow. Marie detoured through past the reflecting pool and maze just to enjoy the richness while it lasted. The route took her by the professor's grave

Emil stood next to the monument, fashioning a second marker. This one was shorter, made only of stone and simple angles. The fresh-turned earth there was raw and brown next to the vivid grass. A new grave. Suddenly the brightness of the day diminished.

Marie had heard the Alcatraz news over the Toyota's scratchy radio. The reporters drone had competed with Mrs. Halcroft's lecture most of the way home. She'd wondered if her friends were in the midst of that, but never once had she considered one of them might die.

She approached cautiously, half afraid to see the marker. Emil looked so stern as he worked.

"Who died?"

"Dr. Grey." He finished engraving the front of the granite slab with his fingers. Just her name and a 'X' above. Then he added, unnecessarily, "At Alcatraz."

She shouldn't feel relieved. Dr. Grey had been a kind person, a good teacher, someone to admire. But, everyone had gotten used to thinking of her as dead after Alkali Lake. They hadn't had time to accept her as alive again. Her death was a healed wound. Then Marie remembered the conversation she'd had with Scott in his room. That wound hadn't healed for everyone. "Scott's going to be so broken again."

"I doubt that," Emil turned from Dr. Grey's grave and began manipulating another small pile of stones between the two graves. "This one is for him."

_A grave for Scott?_ The words didn't connect with meaning for a moment. "No, it can't be for Scott. He's not dead. Dr. Grey didn't kill him up in Canada. He came back here. He's just in a strange state, not quite visible."

Emil continued merging the stones. "Everyone figured that out before going to Alcatraz."

"If everyone knows, then why--?"

"He went on the mission with the X-men. He died there fighting Magneto, or some monster."

"Died…" The word rang around in Marie's skull, colliding with everything she believed like a pin ball. No. She'd had a vision of him alive and well, with her. That hadn't happened yet. She grabbed Emil's hands. "Stop it. You're wrong. They're wrong."

He faced her, pale and shaky, and looked down at her gloved hands locked around his wrists. Marie released him slowly. She hadn't meant to frighten him or threaten to steal his powers.

"Ms. Monroe was there." He rubbed each wrist as if scrapping off any lingering effects of her touch. "She told me what happened and that I had to make a stone for him."

"Well, you can stop! He doesn't need one. He's not dead."

"But, Ms. Monroe told me to make this." It was as much plea as protest. He still looked nervous as he turned back to finish his work. "I have to do it."

_Don't frighten Emil,_ Marie told herself. She backed away, leaving him to his task. He wasn't the one who needed convincing.

-----

Logan normally disliked swimming. The extra mass of his adamantium skeleton coupled with his muscle density meant he couldn't relax and glide through the water as others did. Every stroke was a workout. Today, that's exactly what he wanted. Exertion distracted him from the turmoil rolling inside.

He wasn't used to an excess of emotion. Life was. He didn't try to change the facts of it too much.

So, he swam until his arms and legs burned, until the sun flashing on the surface cut into his eyes and the morning chill in the water numbed his skin. His chest hurt more from holding his breath than from that other pain by the time he finished his laps. After fifty, he pulled himself out of the pool and sat on the lip. With luck, all that exertion had exhausted the troublesome feelings enough to wrestle them into some conveniently dusty corner of his too-empty memory.

He popped his claws and stared at the sheen of sunlight on them. At least the smell of her blood no longer lingered on the blades.

"She doesn't blame you," he muttered to himself. "You can get over this. You did the last time." But, last time he hadn't had to hold her while the life jerked out of her. Last time he'd only had to restrain Scott while the pain lanced. Shared grief -- that had been easier.

That was the real wire cutting his soul while it strangled -- he knew now that sharing pain helped it heal. That was a bad lesson for a loner. It made him dependant. It made him notice how alone he was now that there was no one left who could understand.

"Enough," he growled. And he heard a collective gasp from off to his left. A cluster of younger boys huddled together near the edge of the pool. One clutched a brightly colored beach ball. Apparently, they were afraid to test the water while the Logan-shark swam. He gave the boys a gruff nod and stood. "Go ahead. I'm done."

He was done. The regret chomping on his guts would either go away or keep eating. Let it gorge. Logan healed no matter what the injury. The shrieks and splashes of the boys rose behind him as he walked back toward the house. A case of beer, some sleep, and he'd wake up feeling himself.

It was an indication how much he needed that case that he thought beer would taste better if he could share it with Scott. Good god, he was worse off than he thought if he wanted to spend time with the Boy Scout. But, damn it, Scott understood things he needed to talk about.

He didn't mean the grief and regret so much as the memories that Jean -- or had it been Phoenix -- had shoved into his brain. They memories were a jumbled mess and not even his own, but they must be important. If they weren't, why would she have called him up to Magneto's camp just so she could give them to him?

Scott had a way of seeing through the clutter to the core of things. Fighting and jealousy aside, he and Scott together could cut a problem down to solutions quickly. That's what he needed right now. That's what he couldn't have. Damn bastard always managed to die when it was most inconvenient for Logan. "He probably planned that just to irritate me."

-----

"I can stay on a few weeks, Ororo, until you get things settled here."

"I'd appreciate it, Hank." Ororo knew she couldn't rely on him forever. Sooner or later, politics would seduce him away from her again. But, not just yet. He'd stay a while, comforting and partnering. That fact relaxed her. The simplicity of battle was over. She couldn't focus on just one objective. There were a thousand leaping at her. Transfer of the school's accounts, for one. A different lawyer seemed to call every hour. Then there was the fact that classes were set to start in two weeks and there weren't enough teachers to fill all the posts.

She looked up at Hank from where she'd been sorting records on the floor of Charles' office. "Maybe you could take the professor's science classes for a term? At least you have accreditation."

Hank placed another book in the box he was packing. "Whatever you need."

The sound of determined footsteps in the hallway made them both turn. Rogue appeared in the doorway. At least the face and form looked like Rogue. The stance, the expression belonged to someone Ororo wasn't sure she'd met before.

"Ms. Monroe. The office manager said you were down here. I need to talk to you about Scott--Mr. Summers."

"I'm sorry, Rogue." Ororo said it more to buy time for her mind to review the situation. That Rogue returned at all was a surprise. Ororo had assumed her gone for good after that secretive flight in the middle of the night. Yet, she was back, and not for help getting to her parents' house or to justify taking the cure to her friends, but to talk about… Scott?

Still, Rogue claimed to have seen Scott before she left. Knowing what she now did, Ororo had to admit that might very well have happened. "We should have believed you."

"Probably, but that's not important. We--I need to find him."

Behind her, Ororo heard Hank mutter, "Oh, dear." As if that would help. She uncoiled from the floor. "I wish we could have found him, Rogue. The island just came apart under them. Logan survived, but he does that."

She waited for Rogue to flinch, to hug herself, to start to cry. Instead the girl simply inhaled deeply as if settling into a battle stance. "Then we have to go back. You couldn't find him, but I can."

Hank stepped around Ororo, closer to Rogue. "You have to understand the physics of the situation. With so little mass it was next to impossible for Scott to sustain--"

"He's not dead," Rogue said. "Physics don't matter. Logic doesn't matter. What anyone else saw or knows doesn't matter. I know the truth and he's not dead. We have to get back there and find him."

Hank sent a pleading look over his shoulder, but Ororo could only stare at Rogue. What had turned the girl from insecure and uncertain child to this warrior? Whatever it was, Ororo wanted to find it, nurture it, and administer it to every student who entered the school.

"What makes you so certain he's alive?"

"I met this woman with the power to see the future. I touched her, and I saw Scott--Mr. Summers alive. I know it was the future because we never…" Her voice faltered for the first time, and she blushed. When she finally spoke again, she diverted to, "The vision wasn't something from my memory."

"I see." Ororo had no desire to delve more deeply into whatever that vision might have been. Rogue wouldn't be the first female student to have a fascination with Scott. What mattered more, from Ororo's perspective, was to not shatter the new confidence the girl displayed.

She wanted to ask Rogue if she'd taken the cure. She wanted to ask her for explanations of this remarkable change, which Ororo could not accept happening along with the loss of powers. But, all that would have to wait. Right now, Rogue seemed fixed on the notion of looking for Scott. Would it be more damaging to deny her the chance to look, or to fly the girl all the way out to California and allow her to search fruitlessly for the dead?

"This precognitive mutant, did you verify her powers?" Hank asked. "Scientific research shows that a high degree of subjective elimination occurs in perceptions of such highly problematic abilities. Perhaps this woman you met was merely some form of telepath who misinterpreted her interceptions of plans and desires as future events."

Rogue ignored him to stare at Ororo. "Irene's powers were real. Scott's alive. Are you going to leave him out there in whatever's left of Alcatraz, or are you going to save him?"

Ororo saw the determination in the girl's eyes. Rogue was asking for help, but not relying on it. She would go to Alcatraz whether they flew her or not. She'd walk if necessary. A smile was impossible to avoid.

"I thought so." Rogue nodded. "How long until we leave?"

"It will take about twenty minutes to prepare the jet," Ororo found herself saying. She wasn't sure it was the smart decision. From the stunned expression on Hank's face she could tell he understand what she was doing. She couldn't explain. All she could do was hope that the mission didn't destroy this new Rogue.

-----

If she were ever going to get seasick it would be now, Marie thought. Every time the raft bobbed over a wave she felt her brain slosh in her skull. She fought the resulting queasiness by checking the equipment she carried. A pat confirmed Scott's visor was still Velcroed into the inner pocket of her uniform. Storm and Dr. McCoy had told her Scott had his power back and would need it. She tapped the radio unit tucked in her ear. It also felt secure.

The jet hovered some distance away from the narrow spire of rock she and Dr. McCoy now paddled toward. Marie understood how they'd all missed it in the dark. Even in bright, cloudless daylight the tiny speck of dark stone had been nearly impossible to spot from the air.

As their raft approached, however, the real size of the rock became clear. It might be narrow. Dr. McCoy had estimated the pillar wasn't more than ten feet in diameter. But, it was tall. Marie looked up farther and farther, until her neck stretched, to see the top.

"I'll climb," Dr. McCoy offered. "And send a rope down for you."

"No." She knew she had to be the one to climb that sheer cliff face. "You can't sense Scott. The space up there is so small. You might, I don't know, accidentally step on him or something. What if he's hurt and can't get out of your way? What if you knock him off?"

The big man nodded. He'd already insisted Storm not bring the jet closer as its engine wash might literally blow Scott out to sea, so she hadn't expected him to refute her argument. "You're too logical, young lady."

Marie didn't have an answer for that. She stared at the thirty foot climb ahead of her and swallow hard. This wasn't the Danger Room. A fall here could kill her, especially since they hadn't thought to bring climbing gear.

Dr. McCoy brought the raft up to the base of the stone on the leeward side where the waves were gentler. In the shadow of the pillar the steady breeze stopped ruffling her hair. "Take it slowly," he cautioned. "Test your holds before you put weight on them."

"We did free climbs in training," she said, as much to assure herself as him. Marie wasn't sure she could have taken this risk this last week, but now she didn't hesitate. When a wave pushed the raft against the stone she grabbed hold and hoisted herself up onto the cliff.

"You have your communicator on hands-free?" the doctor asked.

"Yes. And a bit late now if I hadn't." She focused on finding another hold for her gloved hand and then her right foot. "I'll call when I find him. Once he's solid we should be able to pick him up with the jet, right?"

"Yes." The answer came back as a static-filled rattle in her ear. He'd already moved the raft away from the rock.

"Good. Once I make it to the top, I don't think I'll want to crawl back down."

"And don't forget to ask, if you find him. We have to know."

"I know," she shot back, but then she had to concentrate on what she was doing.

The climb was relatively easy near the base. Just twenty-four hours of tidal activity had eaten away the softer mud from the lower structure, leaving plenty of stony terraces and rifts. As she ascended, however, the face grew sheer. She had to work her fingers into tiny fissures. There were places where she could find no hold for her boots at all. She had to pull herself up by her hands alone.

This was a good deal harder than punching an orderly in the nose. More than once she almost looked down, almost retreated. _I'm the only one who can do this,_ she reminded herself. That thought was enough to keep her moving until she pushed herself, sweaty and bruised, onto the top of the rock tower.

The slab of pavement shifted slightly under her weight. It was, Marie realized, part of what had once been the Golden Gate Bridge now balanced atop this remaining finger of Alcatraz. A bright strip of reflective yellow paint marked where the center of the roadway had once been, but what remained of the original slab was barely wide enough for her to lay down across.

A soft but steady breeze scraped her face. She didn't feel the weightiness she associated with Scott anywhere, and she should have given that she sat on a five foot wide plate surrounded by nothing but sky. If he wasn't here, he would have been carried away by the tides and how could he possibly have survived that? Staring at the stark black plateau, Marie faced her first moment of doubt since the clinic. What if her vision of the future was wrong?

Marie crept across the paving, feeling carefully. The slab was empty except for one twisted piece of red-orange girder stabbed the surface. She reached the broken edge and, for a moment, feared what she would see if she peeked over. When she forced herself to look she saw a sloping ledge of sandy soil perhaps four feet below. She felt pulled down toward that ledge as if the air down there were magnetized.

"I'm here," she shouted. Only wind, waves, and a few chattering sea birds replied, but she felt the air grow thicker. Her throat tightened. She ripped off a glove and stretched her hand down as far as she could. At first she felt air. And more air. Then, finally, came a brush of warmth. Fingers closed around hers.

An instant later Scott condensed below her. He'd braced himself into a crevice between the crushed bridge and the island below, probably to keep from being blown away by the wind. He looked as if he'd had a bad night. His T-shirt was nearly shredded. His jeans weren't in much better shape, black with dirt and frayed to white around his bare ankles. She clamped her other hand over his so as not to lose hold.

"Had a little trouble catching a ride out here," she said.

His knuckles whitened, and his grip crushed a bit. Marie didn't mind. She watched him extract himself from the hole. He had to keep his eyes squeezed shut, which slowed his progress. "I knew you'd make it."

His casual confidence stunned her. His voice sounded like sandpaper. Blood caked on his cheek. He'd been left on this rock alone for a day and yet he'd not lost hope. He'd trusted her to come for him.

Marie's vision smeared. She didn't care if he smelled a bit like a stagnant marsh. When he got within reach she wrapped an arm around him and helped him crawl the rest of the way onto the pavement. Once there, he sagged against her. She found she liked his weight, and pressed her face against the gritty fabric of his T-shirt.

A single word hovered in her mind, _Mine_.

That thought startled her enough that her body tensed.

Scott, who had been resting against her, tried to pull away. "I'm all right, Rogue. Not injured. Just a little tired and chilled."

Stubbornly, she dragged him back, clutching him around the chest. It was just a thought, nothing to be afraid of. Besides, the very word -- _mine_ -- warmed her.

"Rogue, I'm fine." He apparently felt only uncomfortable. He still tried to put space between them.

"I'm glad." She refused to release him. "You can get back to giving orders when we're in the jet. But, I've been laughed at, manhandled, chased, and lectured. I climbed all the way up this rock to get you. So, for now, you will lay here and let me hold you. Hear?"

"Yes, ma'am." There was laughter in his voice.

It felt natural to add, "And call me Marie."

"Marie." He seemed to be tasting the sound. She liked that too.

Cold wind and rough rock, too much salt smell mixed with the tang of old blood -- all those unpleasant things shattered any connection between her shadow lover fantasies and this moment. The vision of her future she'd stolen from Irene disconnected too. There was no romance here. And yet, the harsh starkness of this instant had its own sweetness. It was the shared struggle she savored, but only for a moment. They still needed to get off this rock.

She fished Scott's visor out of her pocket and put it in his hands. He murmured thanks. Then, she called the Blackbird, telling Storm they were both safe. Only then did she think to ask the question Dr. McCoy had drilled into her if case she found him. "The Eater, is it dead?"

"Yes," he told her. But, he shivered when he said it.

"What?"

"It is dead. But, before I killed it, it looked into my mind and I saw into its. It was laughing."


	17. Chapter 17

Note: Thanks to everyone for the wonderful reviews. It's always great to have proof that people are enjoying the story. 

* * *

Chapter Seventeen

"How's it going, Kid?"

Logan's voice startled Marie from a confused dream of friendship, fighting monsters, and sex. She straightened in the metal chair, finding all sorts of aches in the process. "Okay, I guess. What time is it?"

"Four," he said, stepping into the infirmary room. The blue light from the lower halls cast him in a metallic shell that only warmed when he approached Scott's bed. Someone had shut off all the lights in the room save a single gooseneck on the bedside tray that glowed gold next to Marie's shoulder. "Storm tells me you were Hell on wheels getting her to jet back to California."

His quick, tight smile told her he approved. He had his hands in his pockets, probably as a reminder not to smoke, as he prowled the room.

"What are you doing up at this hour, Logan?"

"Couldn't sleep. I need to talk to Scott."

She nodded. Scott slept on his back, one arm off the bed and in her lap. Marie flexed her fingers around his limp hand. She was glad she hadn't lost contact with him as she dozed. Her duty here was to keep him unfolded and the new Rogue was going to be diligent. "He's all right. I'm not on some sort of morbid death vigil or anything. It's just the doctor wants me to keep contact with him."

"Still tends to disappear, eh?" Logan pulled a hand from his pocket and mimed a magician's flourish. "Poof."

Marie laughed at the jesting sparkle in his eyes. "About twenty minutes after I let go of him. No one is really sure what will unfold him permanently."

That brought a frown to Logan's face. "So what, you going to be attached to him for the rest of your life? What are they doing about that problem?"

Marie hadn't thought that far into the future. She was glad her powers could do something good, and that she could save him. But forever? The question turned slowly in her mind, blending with the cobweb remnants of her disturbing dreams. People said dreams were your mind's way of sorting experience and knowledge. In hers, the demon shrieks of crazed mutants had jumbled with the feel of cuddling next to Scott in green grass. That Irene's apocalyptic prophecies would invade her sleep was no surprise. But, the vision with Scott was more troubling. Was that experience tangled with the end of the world by coincidence, or was her mind warning her that caring too much would be dangerous?

Looking at their joined hands, her mind began to spin new webs. Was this enforced closeness why they wound up skin to skin in that field? Did Scott in some burst of all to predictable efficiency decide that if she had to touch him every half hour they might as well make the relationship more than friends? If he did, she wondered if she would be able to refuse.

That was too confusing, and strangely painful, to share with Logan. She stroked Scott's hand. His face was turned toward her, eyes closed, and the doctor had removed his visor so she could see all of his face. In the dim light, the fire beneath his lids flickered orange and cast shadows from his lashes onto his cheeks.

"I'm sure it won't be for life," she said at last.

Logan grunted, clearly unconvinced. "Think he'll wake up soon?"

"He's been out since Dr. Kline gave him a sedative. But, before that he was full on commander. He'd practically bullied the staff into letting him go back to his room when the doctor showed up."

"Kline put him out, I take it."

"She said no body could be in such perfect shape after going without food and water for days. She was also concerned with the strange chemical traces she found in his blood work. So, she talked him into an IV. He didn't know she was going to drug him." Marie didn't know enough about medicine to question the doctor's ethics, she supposed. But, the whole thing felt devious. She studied the IV rig, now coiled up and out of the way to the side of the bed, with disgust. "I expect him to be angry when he wakes up."

Logan sat on the edge of the bed and tapped Scott's chest. "That'll teach you to be a dick to women with pharmaceuticals at their disposal." Then to Marie, he added, "You'd think he would have learned that over the years."

She dismissed the doctor's deception to chuckle at the joke. It was good to laugh. Marie realized she hadn't done enough of it recently. "You'd think, wouldn't you?"

Logan plucked Scott's visor from the tray table that served as nightstand, turned the sleeping man's head, and fit the unit onto his face. "He looks okay. Doesn't seem sick."

"That was his argument." She remembered Scott's indignant argument with the doctor earlier. "He said he used something to heal himself and didn't need to waste time in the hospital. He was just humoring the doctor about fluids, I think."

Logan prodded Scott, harder this time. "Come on, Cyke. Time to wake up."

"Should you be doing that?" Marie felt Scott's hand twitch.

"You just said he was fine before the doctor drugged him." He shook Scott's shoulder. "I need to talk to him about things in my head, and I need to do it soon."

"What's the rush?" Her mind leapt to the way Scott had trembled when he mentioned killing The Eater, and then back to the Irene's disturbing prophecies. "This has to do with the monster you killed together, doesn't it?"

"It's all related, I think." Logan's lips tensed as if trying to hold back something more.

"He told me the monster laughed at him as it died."

"Like it had already won."

That it wasn't a question made his words all the more ominous. In the bed, Scott groaned in protest to Logan's prodding. He stretched, then pushed himself up to a seated position.

"About time," Logan chided.

Scott squeezed Marie's hand once before pulling it away so he could brace himself better. "Hospitals never make you better. I felt great when I got here. Now I feel like road kill."

Logan shoved his hands back into his pockets as he stood. "At least you don't smell like it anymore."

"The nurse let me shower before the knock out."

Marie let herself relax into the chair. Watching the two men banter took her back to when she first came to the school. It would sound strange if she'd tried to explain it all to her old high school friends, but despite Magneto's plots and nearly dying, she'd felt safe in those first days. Only later had she lost that sense of belonging to confusion and insecurity. And only now, since returning from the clinic, did she recapture some of that security -- not in others this time, but in herself.

Scott sat here trading jibes with Logan because she hadn't given up or failed. She'd lived up to team expectations. Pride wasn't an emotion Marie had a lot of experience with, but she'd felt it on that cold rock, hugging Scott, and she'd liked it. The problem was that pride came bound to a lot of other feelings, emotions she had no assurance he would ever share or certainty she wanted.

Camaraderie was comfortable. Desire was still an unsettling secret fantasy reserved for when the door was locked and her own hands pressed against her skin. It was also, now, a vision that might be prophecy and a very real man sitting very near who she had to touch constantly, openly.

Scott adjusted his visor, then fumbled with the latch to lower the bar at the side of the bed. To Marie he still seemed drug-dazed. She wasn't certain whether to help him or not. It had been one thing to wrap her arms around him when they were alone on that rock, another to do so where Logan could see.

The nurses had gotten Scott fresh underwear to sleep in so he didn't have to put up with the indignity of a gown. Marie silently thanked them for that kindness. She wasn't ready to deal with more than the blue boxers and white T-shirt exposed when he tossed off the covers and shifted to sit on the edge of the bed. Marie tried not to focus on his legs next to hers, and failed.

_He has bony knees_. The imperfection offered a respite and she grabbed hold. _See, not at all perfect. Nothing to get all distracted over._

"What do you need, Logan?" Scott glanced over his shoulder at the other man. "I assume it's something important. I don't believe you missed my sparkling wit."

"Missed you doing your job mostly."

"About that--"

"Doesn't matter now," Logan broke in. He stalked to the door, leaned out. "But, getting our facts straight on this thing you killed at Alcatraz does. Ororo's got a team meeting planned for ten this morning, and I want you to hear some things before the rest."

"Fair enough." Scott made no move to stand, however. Marie risked reaching out for his arm. Surprisingly, he caught hold of her. His palm was damp against her skin, a stronger indication that he was still drugged despite the quick retorts. She leaned in, offering support, and he looped his arm over her shoulder. This was the same comfortable camaraderie she'd felt when she rescued him, not that uncertain and sexually charged confusion of her dream._ Remember commander, comrade, bony knees._ _Forget the fact that you shouldn't know what he tastes like, but do._

"We should get out of here," Logan said. "Before someone comes in and decides you need more medical attention."

Scott chuckled. "True. But, I think they burned my clothes and I'd rather not go running around the mansion in my underwear, even if it is the middle of the night. Think you can grab me some sweats from the locker room?"

"Be back in a minute." Logan was gone immediately.

"You okay?" Marie leaned in close to whisper once she thought Logan would be out of hearing range.

He held up his hand and wobbled it side to side. "I'd like to be on my feet when he gets back."

No weakness, that was Scott the commander. Funny how she didn't used to like him as much as she did now. Without asking, she slid an arm around his waist and let him lean on her as he found his balance. 

His muscles tensed when he eased off the bed, as if he anticipated a fall. His jaw clenched. His mouth set in that stern Cyclops scowl. That frown was a stubborn façade, she was beginning to realize, reserved for when he felt unsure or afraid.

"It's okay, you know," she told. "I won't stop thinking you're a tough guy just because you stumble a bit. After everything, you're probably entitled."

For a moment, she thought he'd protest. He tilted his head toward her and relaxed his grip on her shoulder. She remembered the moment when he'd unfolded for the first time in her room and she found herself staring into his very blue eyes. Those eyes were shielded now by the narrow red lens of his visor, and they glowed in the darkness of the room.

_I see you,_ she thought, _better now than when you were unmasked._ And seeing didn't frighten her as much as she'd expected it to. Her life had turned recently in a series of sharp moments -- realizing she wanted to be a hero, realizing she had only to act to become one. Now, she felt herself pivoting again, this time shifting from support to embracing him.

If the move surprised Scott, he didn't show it. The corner of his mouth twitched slightly and his hands slid down her back. The contours of her body fit his exactly as it had in the vision. Her nose nestled in just above his collarbone. Her arm circled him loosely just above his hip. He stood quite steady on his feet now, which was good. Her own balance wavered.

She tilted her head up.He kissed her.

For an instant, the time it takes to sip from a drink that might scald, the touch of his lips lingered. Just an instant, but that was long enough for tingling anticipation to sluice across her skin. It was just enough time for memories of future kisses to open, like rain clouds, in her mind and wash away inhibition. She knew what his body would feel like, how his breath would catch if she drew her nail along the skin beneath his jaw. Marie tightened her arms around his ribs. She pressed herself up on her toes, into the kiss. Her lips parted.

And then a tide of questions washed in. _Are you kissing me as a thank you? As obligation? Convenience? Do I want my life to twist from comrade to lover? What happens when you're fully unfolded and I can't touch anymore? Will I be able to go back to never feeling this again? Could I love you? Do I want to? Does it matter?_

Marie pushed away from him. She was shaking and felt suddenly out of control. Where was her new found confidence? Pulled apart, it seemed, by uncertainty.

"Sorry." Scott stepped back. "I misread."

That quickly she lost him. He turned his head and in his profile she could see nothing but his commander's mask. The closeness she'd felt since hugging him on the barren rock was shattered, not by the kiss, but by her indecision and fear.

Damn it, she should have just kissed him back.

------

Bobby Drake clenched his teeth as Kitty pulled him through the hatch into the belly of the Blackbird. He hated the feel of the jet's skin moving through him and wondered how Kitty tolerated the sensation of sliding into objects every day. At least she was efficient about the process. They quickly found themselves in the aft compartment of the plane.

"Let's get it fast and get out of here," Kitty said. "I don't want to get caught."

"We won't," he assured her.

The interior of the jet was so dark he could hardly see her. He heard her though, scrambling up off her knees and slapping at her jeans to dust them. Such a boyish gesture.

Kitty could be beautiful if she dressed up. But, she seemed content to hide all her feminity. When Bobby imagined taking her on a date, he always wound up seeing two friends just hanging out. He didn't want to pass guys on the street and have them look twice to make sure he wasn't holding hands with a very short boy. 

Bobby knew she liked him, and he frequently felt a stab of guilt for not telling her he couldn't return those feelings. Still, if she were that serious about him she'd want to dress up for him, right? She'd work at being sexy just a little, wouldn't she? Besides, she knew he had Rogue. Kitty must be content with friendship, he reasoned. As he had so often before, he put those concerns firmly out of his mind.

He listened to her footsteps on the decking. Her power worked soundlessly, however, so he had to wait for confirmation she'd retrieved his prize from the locked compartment where she'd hidden it. That silence in the dark plane was creepy. Bobby iced up his fist just so he could hear the comforting crackle of his own power.

"What's wrong?" Kitty's tennis shoes squeaked -- mouse sounds, high and nervous -- as she returned. "Why'd you freeze up?"

"Nothing." He didn't want to admit he hadn't liked the silence. He'd faced down Magneto, after all. He wasn't a coward.

She pushed something hard and round against his chest. Magneto's helmet, his war trophy. He cradled it in one arm. He'd found the helmet as he followed Peter up onto the bridge after the madman. He'd initially intended to give it to Wolverine or Storm when they regrouped. But, then things had gotten crazy.

Kitty showed up with the Cure Kid and Storm had focused her full attention on him, as had Dr. McCoy. When no one had noticed Bobby had the helmet even after they reached the jet, he nudged Kitty and she hid it in the locked compartment quietly. During the trip home he decided he'd rather show Rogue before turning it over to the team leaders. 

Bobby knew Rogue would come back to the school. Even if she took the cure, she couldn't just leave without saying goodbye. Even if she'd planned to do that, she would have seen the Alcatraz footage on the news and that would draw her back. She'd have to return to congratulate her teammates, to make sure they were all safe. And he'd been right. She was back, apparently still a mutant. Granted, she'd gone off the save Cyclops almost as soon as she arrived, but he couldn't fault her for team loyalty.

They'd have time together later today. That's when he'd show her the helmet. It couldn't be completely their secret, since Kitty knew, but close enough. Rogue would understand he was sharing his secret with her as an apology for all the times he'd ignored her. She'd know he thought she was important and special and that he could wait for her to figure out how to control her powers. She would someday, he was sure. And then--

That particular line of thought made his body itch uncomfortably. He shouldn't be thinking about that while he and Kitty ducked out of the hanger together. Kitty was smart. She might notice. He didn't want to explain, not when there were more walls she'd need to pull him through.

"I still say you should give that thing to Storm right away," Kitty was saying. "We don't know how long Dr. McCoy is going to hang around, and he's brilliant. He needs to inspect that helmet."

"I will, Kitty. I promise. I just want to do something with it first."

"Like show it to Rogue." She sounded bitter, resigned. He'd known she was too smart to fool.

"Just to make her feel better," he whispered. "Then, I swear, I'm giving it to the leadership so they can learn all they can from it."


	18. Chapter 18

Note: I know it's been a really long wait, but I was sick for almost a month. I hope health and time to write both hang around for a while now. I know where this story is going, if only life will let me actually write it.

Disclaimer: Time to remind everyone I don't own X-men. This story is just for fun.

* * *

Chapter Eighteen

Scott led Marie and Logan into the conservatory where Ororo taught her history classes. It was more secluded than the lounge. Besides, it had been a long time since he watched the dawn through those tall windows. Since Marie found him on Alcatraz he felt closer to the world, more part of it. He supposed that was to be expected when someone came back from death, and he did think of those days when he was trapped in his folded state as a sort of death. Now, he wanted to enjoy the emerging light, especially since he suspected the subjects they had to discuss would be dark.

Logan circled the room turning on a few lamps to counter the shadows that the still-dim and blue sky outside couldn't penetrate. Then he leaned back against the curved student table. "We're not finished with this Eater thing, are we?"

Scott let Marie settle the chair he pulled over to Ororo's desk, then slid up onto the desk beside her. The position was a bit casual for leading a meeting, however informal, but he found he wanted to stay near her and not only so he wouldn't fold again. She was an anchor locking him into life. He liked being locked into hope.

She looked up at him, questioning, but didn't move. He could guess what she was thinking about. Why had he kissed her? Sooner or later, she'd want him to explain that impulsive action. He had no idea how he'd answer. How was he supposed to do that when the only answer that came to his mind was _I want to be alive again_?

He forced his attention back on Logan's question. "I doubt we are finished with The Eaters."

Logan gave a sharp, quick nod. "Fought one in Viet Nam, I think. Jean shoved these memories into my head before she died, but they're all disordered fragments. I can't make sense of them yet. All I know is I connect the jungles in those memories with Nam, and the sense of the Eater was there."

"You can sense an Eater? Could you tell one was on Jean?" Scott knew the memories had to be important if Jean had made the effort to give them to Logan when so much was happening.

"Once I knew what I was looking for, yes." Logan paced again, as if the monster were stalking him at that very moment. "It was like that feeling you get when you know someone is watching you, but worse."

"Angrier," Scott offered, thinking of the evil mind he'd looked into. "Hateful."

"I felt that hate watching me when I was with Jean in the infirmary right before she tore off the door. The Nam memories she gave me are full of the same sensation."

Scott must have flinched because Marie slid her hand under his where it rested on his leg and squeezed. "It's the eyes. I think if it can focus all six of its eyes on you at once it--"

"--can kill you," Logan finished. "I couldn't see it to count eyes, but I know you can feel the thing's gaze turning toward you slowly. You aren't the only one with a deadly stare, Cyke."

Scott didn't like remembering the sensation of The Eater looking at him. He glanced out the windows and wished for warm noontime sunlight to chase the oppressive memories away. He did like having the warmth of Marie's hand pinned between his palm and thigh, though. Yes, he really was going to have to deal with what he felt about her when this meeting was over.

"So, Irene's prophecy is still going to happen." Marie's quiet voice carried the weight of inevitability. Scott frowned. _Prophecy?_

"Tell us about this prophecy, Kid," Logan prompted. "You didn't mention it back in the infirmary."

"I met this woman--"

"I thought I called the meeting for ten." Ororo entered the conservatory wearing a brightly patterned silk robe and carrying a cup of coffee. "In Charles' office. But, somehow I doubt you're here for breakfast at dawn. What's going on?"

Scott thought he shouldn't have to explain a private conversation to Ororo, and he didn't like implications to the contrary. Whatever challenges he still faced from the folding, he remained their commander. Yet, he found himself saying, "We had a few things to discuss before meeting with the full team."

She set her coffee down on a table. "Too many secrets around here."

That was more than a casual complaint. "I'm not trying to leave you out. Let's not make a fight."

"It's not a fight," she agreed. "But, we've been through a lot recently and there have been too many secrets around here. I think everything needs to be discussed openly from now on."

It sounded as if she was looking for an argument despite what she said. Scott didn't feel like obliging her, especially since he wasn't sure he was the one she wanted to fight with. "Fine. We can call the full team if you want. It's all coming out sooner or later."

"Not that the kids are going to appreciate being up before dawn," Logan muttered. "I'll roust them."

--

Bobby was still riding the high of victory in waves that peaked but never really hit valley. Even getting rousted from bed by Logan couldn't dim his spirits. Kitty however, falling into step beside him clearly didn't feel the same way.

"It's not even six in the morning," she muttered. Peter just grunted agreement as he joined the group.

"That's what happens now that we have full team responsibilities, " Bobby told them. He couldn't feel tired, or grouchy. They'd proven their worth at Alcatraz and now were going to become full fledged members of the team. No more junior status. He was sure that's what everyone would be announcing at this meeting. And that was worth losing sleep over.

He'd left Magneto's helmet in his room under the bed. Granted, the meeting might have been a good time to produce it, but Rogue wasn't back yet and he did want to show her first. Tomorrow or the next day would be soon enough to take it to Storm or Wolverine. Right now he'd take praise for the fight, promotion on the team, and then try to find something to do until Rogue came back.

The trio pushed into the conservatory behind Logan. Ororo was wearing her robe and Dr. McCoy was in workout clothes of all things. More surprising, Cyclops sat on the edge of the teacher's desk.

Bobby realized the team leader's return was probably the reason for this dawn meeting rather than their promotion and felt a stab of disappointment. Then he noticed Rogue sitting in a chair next to Cyclops. Seeing her, Bobby lost interest in everything else.

Rogue had come home. But she hadn't come to see him first. He didn't even know if she'd taken the cure or not. Bobby noticed her bare arms, lack of gloves, and then her hand tucked under Cyclops'. Her bare hand, under his, fingers laced together and resting on the team leader's leg.

What did that mean? That she'd taken the cure, but for someone else? Ice formed under his skin at that thought.

"We're here to discuss matters of concern," Storm said as Bobby slid into a chair near the front where he could watch Rogue better. "Both to the team and the school."

"Excuse me," Kitty broke in. Bobby wasn't sure, from her expression, if she'd even heard Storm start to speak. "Mr. Summers, is that really you?"

"Yes." Cyclops grinned … and did he actually squeeze Rogue's hand? "I'm dependant on Rogue here to keep me solid though. Her power seems to be able to pull me back into this dimension."

"So there is a connection between your folding and life energy? Because the theory is that's what Rogue draws with her power."

Oh great. Kitty was on a roll now. Dr. McCoy quickly joined in, babbling something about Cyclops' folding being instrumental in proving M-Theory and explaining the history of the universe before the Big Bang. Bobby knew a dry physics lecture wouldn't distract him from the anger building inside as he stared at Rogue's hand. He needed distracting before he did something stupid.

_She's just keeping him unfolded,_ Bobby told himself in an effort to stay calm. _It's not what it looks like. It's just her powers. _The fact she was using her powers, of course, meant Rogue had changed her mind about taking the cure. Which in turn meant she'd be staying on the team. Bobby smiled. Thinking about being close to Rogue on missions did a lot to settle him down. They'd have so many opportunities together that would have been missed if she'd cured herself.

He tried to imagine those situations. But, his gaze kept wandering to her fingers entwined with another guy's. Did she just rub her thumb against his? Bobby gritted his teeth.

How the hell was he supposed to see that as necessary use of her powers? He was in a competition here, and not with quiet Peter or some other kid. He'd know how to compete with another student. But how did he prove himself a hero to Rogue when his competition was the guy deciding who got to do the heroic stuff?

"Fascinated as I am in puzzling out the limits of my corporeal reality, we do have important matters to discuss," Cyclops said before Kitty and Dr. McCoy could take the conversation any farther into geek-land.

"The kid was going to tell us about some prophecy." Logan seemed grouchier than usual as he circled the room apparently searching for something to slouch against. "I think we should let her get to it."

"Thanks, Logan," Rogue said. She was nervous. Bobby could tell because she tucked her white-streaked hair behind her ears. He wondered if the guy holding her hand noticed that. "As I told Logan and Scott, I met a woman named Irene outside the cure clinic. Her mutant ability was seeing the future."

Scott? Since when did she call Cyclops Scott? Bobby glanced around the room but no one else seemed even surprised. What did everyone else know that he had missed? How far behind in this was he?

"Irene had a recurring vision of a future where mutants go insane and destroy everything," Rogue continued. "She believed the only solution was for all mutants to take the cure."

"Why would mutants all go crazy at the same time?" Kitty asked. "It doesn't make sense and statistically it's pretty improbable."

"The Eater of Souls, Kitty." Rogue leaned closer to Cyclops as she said it, as if taking strength from him. The whole scene made Bobby want to freeze something. "Irene saw that too. It was the monster making us all insane."

"I hate the idea of mythology coming to life," Storm muttered. Arms crossed and jaw set, she looked as irritated as Bobby felt. "Not that whatever this Eater is has any direct correlation to the Egyptian myth."

Dr. McCoy turned in his chair. "The monster could be the foundation for the myth, however. A real monster that converts people who should rightly be deceased into psychopathic killers might be tamed through storytelling into a creature that eats the souls of the evil dead."

"Also not really the point," Cyclops broke in. "The important part of this is that a precognitive mutant saw a future where The Eater of Souls infests the majority of mutants and causes mass destruction. We need to know if our victory on Alcatraz prevented that future or not."

"And if it didn't, how are we going to stop that future?" Logan added.

Bobby forced himself to pay attention to the discussion. His whole body felt like it was icing up under the skin and that couldn't be good. He had to stop imagining things about Rogue and … he just had to stop.

Besides, monsters, especially ones that might not be as dead as expected, were important stuff. Bobby resented not being told how important this Eater of Souls thing was before the Alcatraz fight. He'd been so proud to be in the fight with Magneto at Alcatraz. Now Cyclops and Logan were implying he'd missed the important battle, that the whole team had been taking on the second string while Mr. Hotshot tackled the real danger.

"Scott killed all the Eater's offspring," Storm said. "If it is dead and so are all its young, how can it still be a threat?"

"I don't think I missed any of the young." Cyclops' expression could be had to read at times. He'd flatten his mouth and with that visor covering his eyes it was impossible to know if he was about to praise or shout at you. He wore that blank face now and Bobby couldn't help but wonder what it meant.

"The authorities have detained most of the miscreants involved in Magneto's insurrection, Scott. I could arrange for you to interrogate them if you would like."

"That would help. Thanks, Hank." Cyclops nodded . "So, Logan and I can check those who were arrested for Eaters. But, that doesn't cover everyone Jean might have contacted."

"Magneto himself, and Pyro, are unaccounted for," Dr. McCoy agreed. "Could either of them harbor a monster?"

Bobby considered throwing out that he had Magneto's helmet, but he wasn't sure how to fit it into the conversation. He scraped his chair on the tile floor just to make a little noise and maybe force Rogue to at least look at him.

"They weren't infested at Alcatraz." Cyclops sounded sure about that.

Logan grunted. "Could'a been earlier, up at the camp."

"Did you sense an Eater on him while you were there?" That was Cyclops again, still acting all commander-in-chief. What did Rogue want with such a stern, closed man anyway? Wasn't he like seven years older than her or something? Bobby reached over and nudged her. She frowned at him, then turned back to the conversation.

Logan was shaking his head. "No, nothing. But the thing could have grabbed him between the time I was there and Alcatraz."

At least Logan had never encouraged Rogue to be infatuated with him. That was a decent guy, Bobby had decided. He would have said the same about Cyclops just yesterday. Now he wished he'd never mentioned the dust he'd seem moving around in the back of the Bentley on that trip up from White Plains. Maybe if he hadn't the guy would have just died all invisible. Instead, now, Rogue was treating Bobby as if he were the invisible one. He had to do something about that, but what?

"Why do we think there is an Eater in Magneto?" Storm asked.

"We don't think there is so much as wonder if there is." Cyclops finally released Rogue's hand as he stood up. He didn't vanish immediately so he hadn't needed to hold onto her like he had been. "But, it's a possibility we can't afford to ignore. Magneto is a powerful mutant. An Eater having access to his powers could do a lot of damage."

Storm nodded at this, finally taking a seat near Dr. McCoy.

"So we need to find Magneto," Bobby pounced on the opening her silent response allowed. "And make sure he isn't infected with this monster."

"That'd be about it, " Logan agreed." Too bad the professor's Cerebro won't work without him. Even if we Magneto's wearing that blasted helmet of his, I'm betting Pyro's still with him and we could find him."

"He lost the helmet at Alcatraz," Storm said. "I saw that he wasn't wearing it right before he escaped."

Pointless now to even mention the helmet was under his bed, Bobby concluded. Storm had just provided the important information that Magneto didn't have it. If he handed it over now Rogue would just see him as a foolish boy for not turning it in sooner. Not a hero.

Bobby had felt so great walking into this meeting. Now he felt useless and forgotten. Even Rogue wasn't paying him attention. She sat watching Cyclops. Bobby whispered her name. She put a finger to her lips and shushed him like he was a child.

"If Magneto has been separated from his helmet we could potentially track him with Cerebro were we to find another telepath of sufficient power," Dr. McCoy began. "I know a few telepaths who might be capable of operating it."

"We'll have to repair the damage Stryker did, but I can do that with a bit of help." Cyclops looked at Dr. McCoy. "You have time for that, Hank?"

"Amidst my copious other duties?" Apparently that was a joke, but Bobby didn't get it. "Certainly."

"Good. Then we repair Cerebro as quickly as possible and get someone in who can use it to find Magneto." Cyclops leaned back against the desk again. At least he didn't reach for Rogue again. "Storm do we have other business?"

_Get a grip,_ Bobby told himself. He was letting his imagination run wild here. This wasn't what it looked like. It just couldn't be. Rogue would have told him if she was interested in another guy, wouldn't she? Maybe he just needed to give her the chance to explain.

"A few things regarding the school administration," Storm replied. "But I need to get my notes if we're going to discuss that now."

Great, a long boring discussion of history text inventories and cafeteria protocols -- Bobby didn't want to get trapped in that. He needed to talk to Rogue now. He stretched over to tap her shoulder again, "Rogue."

"What?" At least she looked at him. But, her eyes barely focused on him. Where was the longing he used to see there? That's all he needed really, to see that flare of admiration and joy in her eyes.

"How about we get out of here?" Bobby whispered. "They don't need us to talk about eraser orders and I need to show you something."

"Later. I need to stay with Scott." And her gaze slid back that direction.

"He doesn't look like he's going anywhere." Why wouldn't she at least talk to him? His breath tasted cold. He knew is was anger frosting him over. He could hear it crackling inside him, under his skull, behind his ears.

As if to refute his simple observation, Cyclops pushed away from the desk and started across the room toward Logan. His leaving might have been a blessing if Rogue's shoulders hadn't slumped fractionally. Bobby couldn't see her face, but he knew, he just knew what expression she was wearing.

Cyclops glanced back, gave a quick nod, and she bounded after.

Bobby stared. There was no arm around the shoulders or waist, nothing so overt. But, he knew he wasn't misreading now. Cyclops was taking her away, not just from Bobby's side and not just for the moment. It was as if this intruder had lifted her totally out of Bobby's realm into the rarefied turf of leadership with that single come-along glance.

In an instant she would be beyond his reach forever. Bobby didn't know how he knew that, only that he knew it. And he had to do something to stop it.

He was on his feet before he really thought about it, following Rogue.

"We'll need to talk later," Cyclops was saying to her softly and he brushed a hand over her bare forearm. The movement was meant to be hidden, but it was a lover's touch.

Bobby grabbed hold of Rogue's arm near her shoulder where the short sleeve covered her skin. She turned, startled. She looked furious.

She couldn't even manage guilty, or apologetic. Bobby knew he should just let go and walk away but he couldn't. His fingers wouldn't unlock from her arm. Rogue had to shake his hand free.

"Is there a problem?" That was Cyclops interfering and with a tone that said there had better not be a problem. Well, he was wrong. There damn well was a problem and he was it.

"Only with you fucking my girlfriend."

The sound of his own words startled Bobby. He hadn't exactly meant to say that. But, maybe it was good he did. Cyclops' dark brows arched well above his visor and Rogue's mouth formed a small circle of surprise. She flushed a guilty crimson.

"Marie deserves an apolo--" That was all Bobby let the other man say before he took his swing.

He aimed for a jaw shot, but his fist kept going well past the point when it should have connected. He felt his body twisting off balance. An instant later he lost his breath.

Hit. Gut. Fist. The thoughts popped into his brain in stuttering bursts that matched his gasping. He was staring at the ground. It seemed to be moving. Bobby's knees cracked against the tile floor before he really comprehended that Cyclops had punched him in the gut and he'd lost his wind.

"If you want a fight, schedule one." Cyclops' angry, clipped order was barked over him. He couldn't even glare up in challenge. "In the Danger Room where no one will get hurt."

White sparks spun across his vision. His ears filled with a ringing louder than that tense, angry voice. Mortification rolled over Bobby. Bad enough to miss his own punch, but to be felled by one blow. And now -- oh no -- the burning in his throat and nose warned him he was going to throw up.

Bobby fought retching, and failed. At least he hadn't had breakfast yet, so it was mostly dry, rancid-tasted heaving. Then he felt a hand on his arm. Firm, too thick to be Rogue.

He glanced up. Logan. Thank god. He couldn't have accepted help from Cyclops, but Wolverine was all right even though he was shaking his head in disgust.

"Word of advice. If you're stupid enough to schedule that Danger Room fight, practice first."


	19. Chapter 19

Author's note: I've giving up on saying that maybe things will start to move faster. I think that's a jinx. I'm going to say that next chapter will be slow in coming, hoping to reverse this trend.

Author's note 2: I would really like some input on where my readers think the dividing line between T and M stories is, because that will help me decide whether I'll need to change the rating on this in the next few chapters. If you want to weigh in, either leave a note in reviews or send me a private message or email. Thanks a lot.

And, as always, thanks so much to everyone who took the time to leave me a review here. It's wonderful to hear what people think of the story. And all the people who have favorited or put alerts on the story make my day as well. You are all amazing.

* * *

Chapter Nineteen

Repeatedly throughout the meeting, Marie's mind flitted back to her kiss with Scott. The regret she'd felt at not wholeheartedly responding faded into a sort of confused euphoria. Though they discussed monsters and the safety of the whole world Scott continued to touch her -- a lacing of fingers, a stroke of his thumb against hers. There would be other kisses, she realized, more than kisses given her vision in the grass. That vision seemed inevitable now, and that no longer seemed a bad thing at all.

But, it was confusing to think in terms of a normal relationship with a guy. For the first time since her power manifested she could enjoy imagining a future where she didn't have to be afraid of sexual longing. She couldn't hurt Scott simply by loving him, an amazing thing on its own. Still, it was all happening too fast to think through.

And the meeting was no place to muse about romance. There probably was still an Eater out there plotting to turn every mutant into a rampaging monster. They all were still going to have to fight, maybe die. But, that wasn't as terrifying as it had once been either. She was beginning to like the idea of being a hero.

Then Bobby shattered the calm, shouting insults. Marie had to jump back to avoid being hit by his flailing fist. He was on the ground an instant later, and Scott was telling him to settle things in the Danger Room. Then, to everyone else, Scott added, "Meeting is adjourned after all. Let's all cool our heads."

"Scott?" she managed, stepping farther away from Bobby.

"We'll talk, I promise." He didn't rub her arm this time. "But right now I have to find Ororo and apologize about the meeting. This…" He glanced down at Bobby. A muscle in his cheek twitched and she wanted to stroke it. "shouldn't have happened. I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault." Shouldn't she be feeling disappointment that she'd have to wait for him? It was a little strange to find herself worrying not just about herself, but him as well. She liked it.

"I didn't say it was. Marie, I have to go. I'll talk to you later. Find me in half an hour."

"Sure." A half hour from now was okay. She could let him go to deal with duty, knowing there would be time for them later. And later would give her time to figure out if all this new perspective was the result of … could she actually say love?

A smile tugged her lips as she watched Scott stride through the doors. Dr. McCoy was caught in that wake of authority and hurried after, probably to discuss plans for rebuilding Cerebro. That meant her own private conversation would be delayed more than half an hour. Scott would be dragged off to work as soon as he was done with Ororo. He wouldn't be able to say no, a fact which would likely be annoying at times, but was also just Scott.

Peter and Kitty were still sitting off in the corner, talking low. It occurred to Marie that if Kitty were smart she'd be over with Bobby now instead of huddling with Peter. But, that wasn't Marie's business anymore.

A heavy hand landed on her shoulder. She didn't have to look before saying, "Hi, Logan."

"Always wanted to know what women see in the dick. Care to explain it to me, kid?" His tone was low and teasing, like he wasn't really angry about her feelings for Scott.

"Other than the obvious?" she joked, glancing over her shoulder at him.

He rolled his eyes. "Please."

What to tell him? The whole was new, personal, private. Marie wanted to hold her new feelings close and quiet for a while, study and understand them better. But this was Logan who'd died for her back on Liberty Island. He had some rights to her secrets.

"Part of it is how strongly he can love, I guess. I saw that in what he felt for Dr. Grey. I wanted to be worthy of that." _But, that isn't the whole_, she thought, _not even half._ There was a lot more to her feelings than that first spark, more too than the surge of desire she'd felt this morning. There was the camaraderie too, and the sense of being able to be more with Scott than she'd be without him. But, she couldn't talk about that either. She hadn't lived with the emotions long enough to explain them to someone else yet. "And part is that he won't try to lock me down into being a weak little girl. I'm not, you know?"

"I know that, kid." Logan squeezed her shoulder.

"I don't know what else to say. I just like him, Logan."

He studied her a moment, then nodded. "Fair enough."

"But?" she prodded. His tone suggested he had more to say.

"But, I got a suggestion for who else needs to hear that." He gestured toward Bobby, now seated in the chair she'd occupied all meeting and holding his head in his hands. He looked both dejected and miserable. Yesterday Marie would have felt sorry for him. Tomorrow she would as well. But today he'd embarrassed her and tried to punch Scott.

She'd just caught hold of so many good feelings. She didn't want to tarnish them with the ugly things she might say to Bobby. "I don't really want to have that conversation right now."

"I'm thinking earlier might have been smart," Logan said. "But, since that opportunity was missed, now is when you've got. Later things will just be worse."

He was right, of course. Marie had intended to tell Bobby it was over long before this. But other concerns had crowed him out. That didn't mean she liked the prospect of discussing it now. "What happened to not telling me what to do?"

"I'm still not your father and don't want to be. But there's a whole load of serious stuff going on right now and we don't need this kind of mess to slip on while we're dealing with it." He paused then added. "Scott doesn't need it."

That got her. If she'd been responsible and talked to Bobby beforehand the embarrassing punching incident just now would not have happened. "You're right. I'll talk to him."

Logan nodded again. He exited, taking the others with him and leaving Marie alone with Bobby. She bent down to get closer, squatting as if she were going to talk to a child.

That wasn't the right attitude to take at all. Bobby wasn't a child, even if he'd acted like one just now. Still, sitting or kneeling on the floor would seem subservient, and that was not happening. So, she stayed where she was and said, "Hey, we should probably talk."

"That's what I was trying to get you to do earlier." Bobby looked up and offered a small, somewhat miserable smile. "What the hell is going on, Rogue?"

She remembered her first day in the school. She'd been so lost until Bobby had made her feel welcome with a single smile and an ice rose. He'd been her first friend here. Yet, she'd never really understood him. She read his surface, not the inside thoughts where he lived.

That's why they never should have tried to make their relationship into love. Somehow, she thought she'd always known that, but he probably hadn't. Looking at him now, she realized he'd gone deeper down that wayward path than she ever had. She was going to hurt him when she told him they were through.

"It's complicated," she hedged. Maybe she was moving too fast. Maybe she should think about all this more carefully. "So much has changed since I got to the school."

"I'm sorry I haven't been paying you enough attention." He would have said more, but stopped when she shook her head.

Whatever she felt or didn't feel for Scott, she knew a romance with Bobby was wrong. It really was time to finish that. "It's not you, Bobby."

"No." His brow crumpled like paper in a fist. "Don't say it's you. I know when a girl says, 'It's not you, it's me.' that it's really over."

"It is really over." As she said it, the confusion she'd been feeling began to lift. Granted, this attraction to Scott had happened fast, but maybe she needed fast in her life. They all could have died at Alcatraz without her ever having the chance to love him. For all she knew they could lose their chance tomorrow in some other disaster. It was all well and good for normal people to work slowly up to kissing, or touching, but she neither had the luxury nor wanted it.

"Because of him?" Bobby's voice had chilled.

"Only partly." This was easier with him angry. Marie suspected that wasn't the way it should be if they were going to stay friends. "You and I weren't right for each other."

"We were fine with each other until you realized you could touch another guy. Is that all it is to you, Rogue? Physical?"

Bobby had never called her by her real name. She'd never told him to. How strange was that? Marie shook her head. Unlike with Logan, she felt no obligation to bare her feelings to Bobby. "It's more complicated than that. I told you."

"It looks pretty simple to me. The boss man comes back single and you are all over him."

His anger beat on her patience. Marie forced her fists to unclench. She didn't want to escalate this into a fight, much as Bobby seemed to be trying for one. He was hurt. She got that. And she'd certainly been nasty enough when she found herself in the same jealous position a week or so ago. Still, he had no right to exaggerate.

"I was not all over him. We held hands."

"In the meeting, what about before?"

Before she'd been kissing Scott. "Before, after it's all none of your business, Bobby."

"How is it not my business? You're my girlfriend."

"I'm not. Not anymore." She was shouting now. So much for not fighting. But, he was being intentionally nasty beyond what being hurt warranted. "And if I had been this morning, the stunt you pulled in the meeting would have ended it. What were you thinking taking a swing at him like that?"

His expression hardened with an anger she'd never seen directed at her. "What do you expect when my girl is screwing around with another guy?"

"I was not."

"But you're going to."

It was the truth. Marie gaped a little in surprise, realizing it. Whatever was going on with Scott -- convenience laced with friendship, or something more -- she wanted to explore the feelings. Physically. As soon as she got the opportunity. The thought made her a little giddy.

"How else am I supposed to read this? You're dumping me for him just because you can fuck him."

The insult should have made her furious. All it did was remove the last wisps of guilt she felt for leaving him. "No, Bobby I'm not."

"What then?"

"I'm not dumping you because I can sleep with Scott."_ Though I can, and will. _"I'm dumping you because, right now, I wouldn't sleep with you even if I could touch you."

--

_I can do thi_s, Ororo told herself as she gathered randomly scattered notes from her desk._ I can get through all these changes_. It wasn't the discussion troubling her. It wasn't even the monster. The X-men had dealt with monsters before. It was what wouldn't be discussed, what wouldn't even be spoken about.

The meeting in the conservatory brought back so many memories. She remembered the old days when she, Hank, Jean, and Scott would wait for the professor to go to bed so they could sneak into that grand glass room to stare at the stars, discuss the world, and confess hopes for their combined futures.

She and Hank would snuggle on the floor to one side. Scott lay with his head in Jean's lap, looking up at her rather than at the rest of the group. Ororo could still taste the cocoa she used to drink, feel how Hank's fur bunched under his sweatshirt when she leaned against him. She missed those days more than she wanted to admit. Everything had seemed fixed, certain, and full of hope. And now…

Now there was no professor. Now it seemed Scott held onto reality by only the small hand of a girl who, until yesterday, Ororo fretted would abandon them. Now Hank would use Scott's return as an excuse to void his promise to stay a semester. Now everything would be different.

_I can do this, _she repeated silently. _By myself if I have to._

Ororo's hold on her stack of papers tightened until she felt the paper crinkle. When she looked up, Scott was standing in the doorway.

"You all right, Ro?" He stepped closer.

"I will be," she told him. "We should get back."

"Actually, I ended the meeting. Bobby got upset and took a swing at me. I had to put him on the floor."

"You hit him?" That didn't sound like Scott. He was usually more in control. But, who knew what he would be like now with Jean dead, with his own body only a temporarily resident of the here and now?

"He didn't give me a lot of choice." Scott softened that with a boyish grin that looked forced.

"That worked better with Jean than it ever will with me." Maybe she shouldn't have mentioned Jean, but it was out now, and Ororo didn't want to forget her friend entirely.

"Why do you think we were always partners in the field?"

"We were always partners because you could trust me to be honest with you." Which was true. There was a time when she could tell Scott anything, and hear anything from him as well. They were all the closer because there was nothing sexual between them -- none of those messy, aching emotions, just simple trust.

"So, be honest with me. What's wrong?"

It had been that easy once. She wanted it to be again. "The professor is dead."

"I know that."

"You know it. You probably feel it. But the burden of his death is resting on me, Scott. Do you know he asked me to take over for him? You were supposed to do that."_ I was supposed to be able to fly out to the edges and crusade, not stay home and mind the business details._ She wanted to punch him too, or maybe hug him and beg him to stay around.

"I'm back now."

"But, you aren't." She realized she was still crushing the papers and carefully put them down. The edges no longer rested in a neat pile but curled on top of each other like so much rubbish. Was that where their lives were all headed? Rubbish? "Things will never be like we used to dream at midnight in the conservatory. The future is going to continue as it is -- cold, and full of loss."

"Ororo, I know I haven't been holding up my end of things lately, but that's over. I am here. Maybe things will never be like we planned when we were kids, but that doesn't mean they have to be horrible." His visor only partly hid the creases forming across his brow.

He had been happy in the meeting, Ororo had seen that. He was picking up the pieces of his life, maybe with Rogue, and she was honestly happy for him. But, there were hard realities they both had to face.

"How long can you stay visible if you aren't in contact with Rogue?"

His jaw clenched a little. "Not sure."

"Last night, when you were unconscious, you only lasted about twenty minutes without contact. Are you going to lead missions while holding hands? How are you going to run the school if you vanish in the middle of parent-teacher conferences? What if Rogue decides to leave again?" Given the girl's renewed dedication, Ororo didn't think that would happen, but they had to face the possibility. So much had changed.

He was frowning his stubborn frown. "She won't."

"Because you are so irresistible?" It wasn't really a joke. She still wished he would have laughed.

"No. Probably not. But, I'm not leaving all of this in your lap, Ro. I'm going to find a permanent solution to this folding problem."

"And until then I have to carry it all."

"Damn it, no you don't." He looked away, which meant he agreed with her even though he refused to admit it. "Even in this state I'm not useless. You run the school. I'll figure out something with the team."

"You can't lead missions," she pushed.

"I'll find someone then. You don't have to do it all yourself."

"Maybe." She hated the fact she could no longer just trust him as she once did. "I have to be prepared to take it all. Hank promised to stay, but he won't. He'll be heading back to Washington. Jean is dead. And I can't just accept that you will be yourself again."

"I'm still me. Even folded, I'm still me."

"And if you aren't, are you going to leave us?" _Am I going to be alone?_

"Leave?" Scott caught both her arms in his hands, but stopped short of shaking her. "I know I was missing in action while The Eater beat me with guilt. But, that's over. I'm here for the duration, whatever it takes."

"Are you sure? Because I think we've all lost ourselves recently." She'd gotten over Hank. She had, but when he returned so did all the feelings.

"Of course, I'm sure." Of course he would say that. Scott was always sure, even when he shouldn't be.

"I need to be sure again. I'm not sure of anything anymore."

He squeezed her shoulders. "You will find yourself again, Ororo. You're strong and brave and you know what to believe in."

"I used to think I did." She remembered a conversation with Rogue that now seemed very long ago. She'd told the young woman to be strong, that solutions were never fast or easy. How easy that had been to say from a place of security. Now it was so hard. It was as if she and Rogue had switched places.

"Trust me."

Once, she had. She might have now if his request had sounded more like the old Scott and less like a plea. But, none of them were what they'd once been.

--

When Marie went looking a half an hour later, she found Scott on the lowest level of the basement, inside the brain of Cerebro. Dr. McCoy sat cross-legged in the hall outside the imposing, round entrance with a computer open across his knees. He was muttering, "Red, gray, red, green…" into a communication device. All she could see of Scott was a pair of legs sticking out from the service panel in the wall next to the door.

"He's busy," she observed. Once he finally emerged and Dr. McCoy was gone, she was going to suggest they go to the reservoir and make that vision come true. The thought made her skin tingle. She didn't bother to fight the excitement. After all, she'd made her decision and was happy with it.

"No indication that he's fading however," the doctor replied.

"Folding?"

"Fading, folding, whatever happens to him when the two of you aren't touching. This extended stability is peculiar given the duration of your touch's effect last night."

"Maybe it's cumulative," Scott said, pushing himself out of the hole. He looked remarkably clean for having just crawled around inside a wall. "Marie's repeated contact could be training my body back to it's normal state."

"That's probably all we can manage on Cerebro today." Dr. McCoy closed up his computer, ignoring Scott's hopeful suggestion. "We'll need to manufacture those couplings before we can even run a full diagnostic."

Scott made a show of wiping his not-dirty hands on a rag from his toolbox. His knuckles clenched white around the cloth. Marie couldn't help being glad Dr. McCoy was leaving, but she still thought he could have at least offered a little encouragement for Scott's theory. Instinctively, she wove her body under his arm, more to comfort and support than to renew the anti-folding therapy.

"I'm going to see what I have, Hank," Scott said. How did he keep his voice so even when he was clearly distressed about something? "I might be able to manage something that will hold long enough to run the scans. I'd like to know the full extent of what we're dealing with tonight, if possible."

"You know where to find me."

"The lab, right."

Scott squeezed her arm after the other man was gone. Marie pivoted so she could wrap both arms around his waist. She wanted to know what was troubling him, and squinted into the lens of the visor. It was hopeless. The blasts washed away all hint of whatever emotion might lurk behind them.

"Sorry," he said. "The windows to my soul are always blocked."

It still felt good to hold him. "Have to get at it in other ways then."

That seemed to be the right answer because she felt his tense muscles relax a little. He glanced back at the open service hatch. "The job is going to be worse than we thought. Those thugs did a sloppy scavenging job."

"They didn't impress me as having a deep regard for personal property." She couldn't help shivering a little with the memory of that terrifying night. She should have been stronger. She'd nearly panicked during the attack. But, that was the past. Right now she could rest her head on his chest and soak up strength. This was good. It would be better if he wasn't troubled though. "Cerebro isn't what's bugging you, is it?"

"Not really." He pulled out of her embrace and resumed wiping his hands on the towel. "I've been slacking, apparently."

"You've been invisible and -- " There were times she wished she had Kitty's vocabulary. "--not touchable. How were you supposed to do anything?"

"That's not the point. I have responsibilities here and others have been carrying them."

"Yeah, it is the point, but I already had a fight with Bobby when I broke up with him. One is all I'm allowing myself per day."

"We weren't going to fight."

_Okay, he's stubbornly in denial as well as obsessed with duty. _This was going to be the downside of the relationship. She couldn't get Scott Summers without accepting Cyclops too, and Cyclops always had duty to contend with. "We were going to talk."

"Yes. We were. I got caught up here with Hank." He crouched and began organizing the tools in the box.

"This is important stuff. That part's okay. I just hoped now that you're done we could ride your bike up to the reservoir." Just making the offer caused her gut to tighten nervously. She didn't proposition guys every day of the week, after all.

At least he gave her his full attention. "Now?"

"Unless you own the thing just so Logan can steal it, yeah." _I am not moving too fast. I won't even let myself think that._ But a little enthusiasm from him would have been nice.

"All right. Sure." He deliberately closed and locked the tool case, then stood slowly. All his movements had slowed. He was dragging himself into this. "The Cerebro parts can wait until later."

Her chest felt hollow. Why was he being so reluctant? Was the machine actually more interesting to him than she was? "You know if you don't want to go, you can stay and work ."

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to." Her palms itched and there was a prickling sensation across the back of her neck warning her that this was wrong -- the anger, the accusation, all of it. The closeness she'd felt toward him was shredding for no reason. It was just one day, one ride, one talk. It was just their time in the grass. "The work shouldn't wait, right? Duty first and all that?"

"Sometimes it's going to have to be that way."

Marie swallowed hard and nodded. She must have been frowning because he ran his thumb over her lower lip. The air thickened as it usually did when they touched. She was pulling him deeper into reality again just from the brush of a finger.

More than that, her pulse spiked. All she really wanted was to kiss him again.

"This is the point where we talk rather than bottle things up," he said. "I guess I'm not doing a very good job of that."

Her mouth worked, but she couldn't push words out. How was she supposed to admit that she was feeling shallow and lusty when he was focused on duty and responsibility? God, was Bobby right after all? Was she fixated on the physical?

"It's not important," she made herself say. "There's lots of times for rides, right?"

"If I didn't have so much to do. If others weren't carrying so much for me." He let that line stumble off rather than articulate what could have been. Then he gave a little shrug, all loneliness and nobility, and Marie just broke inside.

Here he was brave and dedicated and trying to be considerate of her and all she was doing was lusting. She'd given up being a child, hadn't she? She'd embraced her own responsibility to the team. _Selfish, shallow, nasty Marie. Stop it._

"You're trying so hard and no one cuts you any slack. It's not fair to burden you like that. I don't want to. I mean it was just a stupid vision from a woman who was probably crazy anyway. No one says that future is fixed and you don't have to want me just because I can touch you."

His head snapped up. "Wait. What?"

"I'm saying it's okay. I get it that duty comes before love. If there is anything like love here with us in the first place." She heard her own voice babbling madly, saying things she never thought to voice out loud. Her whole body heated with embarrassment.

"Marie, it's okay. Just let me catch up here."

There was her chance to escape, if she wanted to take it. She stayed where she was, staring up at him. "I didn't mean to say any of that."

"I guessed that." His mouth twitched, not in humor but in a sort of confused uncertainty. He was, she realized, as out of his element here as she was. "What exactly are we talking about here? What vision?"

She stared at her toes, suddenly unable to look at him and talk. "I touched Irene -- that's the woman with the prophecies I met at the clinic -- and got this vision of us. You know. Together. It was up by the reservoir, on a sunny day like today."

"So, because today is sunny you thought we need to fulfill this prophecy you saw?"

"I wouldn't say need to," she whispered.

"Oh." The sound vibrated against her. He hadn't realized, until this moment, what she was talking about. Her embarrassment escalated. This wasn't at all how she'd pictured things -- him distracted by work, her pushy -- and the last thing she wanted was him making love to her out of some mistaken sense of duty.

Suddenly, the whole idea seemed rushed and wrong. "But, I've realized it's all wrong, too soon. I need to think about this more, I guess."

That was a lie. He needed the time, not her. But, she didn't think he would accept that line of logic right now. She leaned up and kissed his cheek lightly. Then, before he could protest, she added, "I'll see you later."

And she ran.

--

It was about an hour after lunch when Logan found his way out onto the roof through a window off the third story hall. The window led to a flat ledge large enough for a couple pairs of boots. A little crenellated wall enclosed the ledge and Scott had braced his feet on that wall. He sat on the slopping roof tiles, staring out across the grounds, just as Marie had said he would be.

"Brought beer." Logan slapped the six pack down between them as he sat.

"Just what a man perched on a rooftop needs, alcohol." Still, Scott took one of the cans and even opened it.

"I don't need to worry about getting drunk or falling. You better watch your step." Logan laughed because he liked the air up here, and the view out over the grounds, and could tolerate the company. "This is a good place to think."

Scott's posture, however, remained rigid, as if he were trying to turn himself into a stone gargoyle for the castle roof. "How'd you find me up here?"

"Followed my nose, like always." Logan downed his first beer in one swallow.

"Why?"

"Lots of reasons."

"Marie one of them?"

Logan shrugged. "She seemed kind of worried about you. Said you didn't show up for lunch and she wanted to make sure you hadn't folded out of sight again."

"I seem to be holding pretty solid today."

The early afternoon sun was hitting this side of the house so Logan had to squint. Scott dangled the open can between his knees rather than drink from it. Apparently with his glasses, he didn't have trouble with the glaring sunlight. "I guess I need to talk to her."

"That hard?"

"Sometimes."

Rogue wasn't the topic Logan had dragged himself up here to discuss, and what he had to talk about was too important to let himself get distracted. "Drink the beer. I've got something else to discuss."

He expected a protest. Instead, Scott took an obedient swig. "So, talk."

"It's these memories that Jean, or Phoenix, shoved into my head -- the ones about sensing Eaters. They're a jumble. I know Stryker was there in Nam, that we were in the army together, and that there was a village full of poor, Eater-possessed bastards. I convinced him to kill those people. I also know those were Stryker's memories that got shoved into my head, not mine. But, what's bugging me is I'm sure that I've felt that evil-eyes sensation from an Eater some other time."

"You don't mean in the foreign memories. You mean recent, in the last fifteen years?" Cyke had pinned it exactly in one. If there was anything Logan actually liked about Scott it was the fact he didn't have to explain things a dozen times to the guy.

"Yes. Sometime in my own memories. That means I ran into a different Eater sometime in the last fifteen years."

Scott took another drink, longer this time. "Can you remember when that happened?"

"Recent. But, I wasn't aware when it happened what I was feeling. I didn't pay enough attention at the time and now I've lost the way back. My whole memory is a jumble, even the new stuff." Logan shook his head. Every time he tried to grab that memory it floated away. "If Jeannie were here I'd ask her to pull it out of my head."

"If the professor were here we could ask him to do the same," Scott said. He frowned a bit and Logan regretted mentioning Jean so often. Though maybe they needed to talk about her too, especially if Scott was going to get tangled up with another woman Logan cared about.

"I'm not sure I'd want the professor in my head again after what he did to Jean and Phoenix," Logan told him, intentionally pushing the sensitive subject harder. "He messed her up, and that messed up a lot of people."

"He did what he thought was right. He was just afraid of the wrong person."

"Figures you'd defend him." No, that was the wrong way to do this. He didn't want a fight with Scott right now. He wanted … what? To mend fences? Maybe that was it. Jean wasn't here to fight over anymore, and apparently the fight had never been over her anyway.

"Not defending," Scott insisted. "Just explaining."

He fell quiet for a while. Logan just chugged another beer and waited. He knew the signs. The guy had a lot more to say and what came out would be more interesting if Logan didn't push.

"The professor thought he was helping Jean contain her powers, but all he was doing was locking up the other person inside her. I don't think he created Phoenix with those blocks he put into Jean's mind. From everything I read on the topic, multiple personalities come into being very early in a child's life, and Jean hinted at a few telekinetic surges before she was five."

"Maybe not, but he sure didn't help her. He locked part of her soul up."

"He wasn't the only one," Scott whispered. Logan knew this was the important part. "None of us saw what was going on with Jean and Phoenix early enough to save them."

"Maybe they didn't want to be saved."

The breeze picked up so it pulled their hair. Scott propped his chin on a fist and just stared across the lawn for a long moment. When he turned back to Logan his expression was closed and tense. "Who doesn't want to be saved?"

Sucking the beer foam off his lips gave Logan a moment to think. "How about someone who knows she's not whole, who knows the two parts of herself are at war about too many things. But, she also knows if she becomes whole she'll lose the person she loves the most in the world."

"She wouldn't have lost me."

"Who said anything about you?"

Scott leaned his head back so he was staring at the sky and gave a short, sharp laugh. Then he drained his beer. "We were each loved by a part of her, neither by the whole woman."

"You may be right." The guy was being honest. _Time for me to step up too._ "I only kept chasing because I got encouragement. Hell, Scott, if I'd known there were two people fighting inside one woman, I would have backed off. I just figured Jeannie was lying to herself and staying with you out of habit."

Scott snorted, not quite laughter this time, but not quite disgust. "I knew about Phoenix and didn't help her. I lived with her, but I didn't see what she needed. What does that say about me?"

"That, contrary to most available evidence, you're human."

"Or that I'm a selfish bastard who doesn't deserve a good relationship."

They weren't talking about Jean anymore. "Much as I agree with the selfish bastard part, I don't have the right to tell anyone what they deserve."

Logan crumpled the can and tossed it over the side. Before the low arcing metal ball could get very far, Scott shot it out of the air. "Don't litter."

"Oh yeah. Stop me." He tossed another can. Scott obliterated that one as well.

And then another. The bastard managed to disintegrate all the empties. Only two full cans remained. But, the tension had broken. "About this thing with Marie."

"Let's see if I can guess how this will go," Scott offered. "You're going to say you'll kick my ass if I hurt her. Then I tell you it's none of your business. You come back with, 'I'm making it my business.' We each growl a bit, then one of us leaves with what's left of the beer."

"Yeah, that's about how I figured it would play out."

"How about we try for something more original?"

"Okay. You love her?"

"Not yet, but it could happen."

"Then why the hell are you up here moping about not deserving relationships?"

Scott uncoiled to stand on the little ledge. He'd only had one of the beers, not enough to make him tipsy, but the balance was still precarious. "This is a good thinking spot is all."

"And there's a time to be done with thinking."

Scott stood stone-still for a minute, staring out at the grass and trees and sky. Then he nodded. "You're right, Logan. It's all about action and I've been falling down on that part a bit today. There's something I need from you."

"From me?"

"Yes. As long as I'm in danger of folding out of sight I can't act as field commander for the team. Ororo is consumed by school administration and Hank isn't personally suited for the job. That leaves you. I need you to take over for me for a while." He smirked. "Just don't get too comfortable, because I'll want the job back."

"Fair enough." Logan felt left behind by the sudden change in mood and topic. But he couldn't argue with the logic of it all.

"Starting now."

"Why now?"

"Because I have to leave for the rest of the day and someone has to be in charge if there is a disaster."

--

Marie sat in the window seat downstairs. The afternoon sunlight cut rainbows across the old wood casement and the sky outside was brilliant blue, just like in her vision and totally at odds with her mood. If she'd done the right thing when she saw Scott before lunch, why did she feel so miserable?

She knew it was because she was facing hard truths. She wanted to be a hero. The nobility and honor of all that glittered, bright and pure, in her mind. She could be that. Scott would respect that. He'd understand it too. They would be close comrades in arms.

But she also dreamed of her shadow lover, all dark and sweaty. She'd contemplated the cure in the first place because she longed for the physical. She'd clung to that vision from Irene because she liked it. She could admit that to herself now. And she was fairly sure she could seduce Scott, but would he even like her if she did?

She wasn't destined to get both her desires. She had to sacrifice something. It seemed terribly unfair.

"Marie?"

She turned to the door, a bit surprised to hear Scott's voice. He'd changed clothes. Instead of the sloppy sweats from this morning, he wore a crisp blue shirt and jeans. He looked as if he were going out. "So you haven't vanished into thin air."

"No, I haven't felt myself refolding all day. I was looking for you."

She returned the smile he gave her, and felt suddenly warm inside. "You were?"

"I was." He tucked his hands into his trouser pockets. "I cleared the afternoon. Maybe we should take that bike ride after all."


	20. Chapter 20

Note: In about a week Shadow Man will have been posted and in progress for 13 months. Wow. And not done yet. This chapter took forever, but I hope it is finally right.

Disclaimer: In my long absence I have not aquired the rights to X-men. They don't belong to me. I don't make any money from this. It's just for fun.

* * *

Chapter Twenty

Scott eased the motorcycle off onto the grass at the top of the cut-back trail that lead to the highest point above the reservoir. He felt his heart thudding steadily in his chest. It wasn't the craziness of charging a bike the size of the Harley up a slope designed for light off-roaders that electrified his body. It was the feel of Marie's arms clenched tight around his mid-section.

He kicked down the stand and waited while Marie slid off the seat before swinging his own leg over and free of the machine. He managed to keep the movements smooth. When he leaned back against the bike, he felt sure he looked relaxed. All that aroused excitement remained safely locked under his skin.

"So, what now? Gazing out over the water? Bird watching?"

Her eyes widened fractionally, then narrowed when she realized he'd trapped her with the joke. He loved how mobile her mouth was, flattening, then pouting, then teeth nipping the lower edge ever so briefly as she worked through her own feelings. "Be nice. I'm a little nervous here."

_I could love you._ He almost said it aloud, but didn't because he didn't want to unsettle her more, at least not that way. He felt all the little muscles under his skin flex, a sharp urging toward action. Yet deep inside he remained utterly still, waiting. The arousal he'd expected, given why they were here. The calm surprised him. Was this mix of stillness and tension what being high felt like? "We don't have to rush, you know. It's not a race."

"Don't have to dawdle either." Marie's nails bumped down the leather sleeve of his jacket. When she reached his wrist she caught hold and gave a tug. The tension under his skin seemed to pop while the weighted calm inside rooted ever deeper. "If you wait too long we'll wind up fumbling around in the dark."

"Night vision." He tapped his visor. "Trust me. I won't fumble."

"You're so weird." Her nervousness broke on a laugh. She leaned against him. The feel of her, warm and solid against his body, jolted him. "I kinda like that."

He liked the teasing, and the serious way she looked at him in that same moment. He felt his shoulders release, leaving him free to explore the inner stillness further. "Good."

He didn't mean only that she liked his strange side, nor did he mean the slightly high feeling racing through his body alone. Rather the whole of being with her and being able to relax again pleased him. Scott realized he hadn't relaxed since Jean disappeared beneath that flood at Alkali Lake. He'd been bound and his focus locked, first on despair and then on duty. That strange inner stillness was just relaxation -- he'd forgotten the sensation.

Marie was reminding him. She snuggled her arms around his waist under his jacket. Her hands stroked lightly up his spine. Her movements allowed little eddies of cool air to sneak under the hem of the jacket into the heated space between his body and the leather. The chill called attention to how his cotton shirt stuck to his back, how her fingers scraped the fabric. He wondered if she liked that his body, collecting the sun's energy as it always did, was a few degrees hotter than most.

Scott locked his own hands together at the base of her spine. "First times are hard. Not just virginity, but first times together. It's better to go slow."

"As long as it's still going." Her voice sounded determined, but hints of uncertainty lingered in her eyes and in the way her nails bit briefly into his back muscles. "I have this crazy fear that you're going to tell me you brought me up here just to say we can't do this."

She wanted to be kissed, he knew, to just move on with the comfortable and mindless release of sex. Instead he held them in this unsettled pause. He liked watching his own responses unfold. Jean always rushed this part, told him what his emotions were practically before he experienced them. Here, with Marie, he was free to feel at his own pace. But, he didn't want her to think he was reluctant. "I'm not going to say that."

"So you do want to make that vision of mine, of Irene's, happen? Right?" She worked a hand free and traced her fingers across his cheek bone.

The touch shouldn't have startled, but it did. He shied away, warning, "Careful." But, it wasn't the visor he was protecting. Intimacy was the danger, the sharing of secrets physical and not. He wasn't certain how she would take his hidden truths. Still, he owed them to her. "I don't know about visions. And I don't know what you want this to be beyond a fulfillment of some fantasy. But, I know what I need is somewhere between sex and forever. It's not a simple thing."

"I don't think I know what that means." Her accent was thick.

It would have been easy to turn things to joking, about her drawl or about himself. But that wouldn't be honest, or intimate. "I'm not casual."

"About anything. I know that about you, Scott. You are the most driven, intense person I've ever met."

The truth wasn't as hard to say as he expected it to be, nor did it destroy the peace inside him. If anything, spilling words left more room for the still, relaxed feeling that shouldn't have blended so seamlessly with desire. "I want to be something else with you. I want us to be a haven from all the world's storm."

That made her smile all the way to her eyes. She squeezed his ribs with one arm. "I guess I was kind of expecting you to grab the way other guys would, which is stupid, really not you."

"I could grab." He did, because he could and it felt right. She squealed. And kissing her was the right thing, the only thing, to do. The touch of mouths was a little shock.

Marie never hesitated. She surged up, pressing as much of herself against him as possible. Her hands fisted his shirt, one right over his spine and the other at his collar. Their teeth bumped and she backed away, mumbling apology for clumsy eagerness. Then, she came right back for another kiss. If he hadn't loved her before, that tiny act of determination would have felled him.

He maneuvered them away from the bike toward a stand of rock that fronted the trees. Half-way there, they both stumbled. They would have fallen hard if he hadn't blocked the collapse with his hands. She was still clinging to him when they landed in the grass and she was laughing.

He became instantly aware of every spot their bodies touched. It was too much, too fast. He didn't want to scare her. Or maybe it was himself he didn't want to frighten. "Okay, a bit out of practice on the grabbing."

"And here I thought you'd planned it to turn out this way." She wiggled farther under him. He rested his weight on his elbows and thought about how comfortable he felt lying against her. Not alarming as he'd momentarily feared. Safe.

A strange thing to feel in a moment like this, for both Scott in particular, and, he suspected, for men in general. Desire rasped all the senses raw, and he could find that eagerness scratching just below the surface balm of peace. Any moment physical need would break through, and he would welcome it. But, for this instant, he savored this gift of calm, surprising safety.

He'd gone without this sense of security longer than he had without relaxation. He thought he hadn't felt it since before Logan arrived. Not that the other man caused its loss. The events surrounding Magneto's plot to use Marie had pushed Jean's abilities and woken Phoenix. That split, not Logan's coincidental arrival, had been the end of Scott's comfort. Of his safety.

Safety not from danger, but for itself. It was the safety to relax, to be just Scott, and to feel. Before Phoenix, Jean had given him something that was right enough and dear enough, protected enough that it would always be. He'd known then, whatever else exploded in his world, they would be. That knowledge had been his strength.

And its loss had been the weakness The Eater exploited. It reminded him of all the little moments that once eased him -- reading the paper with her, feeding her ice cream, reclining with his head in her lap while they talked with Ororo and Hank about a brighter future -- and then reminded him how easily they had been snatched away. He'd lost his belief that anything could be secure.

That loss was why he wanted to hold and hesitate now. He wanted to hold this moment of perfect safety as long as he could because nothing was safe or permanent. But, Marie wouldn't let him freeze. She tugged at his jacket, ready to race forward. That was her courage.

Marie wouldn't offer the safety of a quiet place. She'd be a partner at his back. She would charge danger. She'd challenge his caution. She wasn't Jean, healing and compromising. Life with her would be more adventure than comfort. And that was its own safety, the safety of strength.

He let her remove his jacket, didn't protest when her fingers worked the buttons at the front of his shirt. Partly, it was the power of desire uncoiling and stretching though him. Partly, it was an unwillingness to be a coward in the face of her certainty. He caught her hand, drew a little circle on her wrist with his thumb. Her bones seemed so slight, so frail, and he realized he'd been thinking of her that way. But, she wasn't weak. The pulse beneath his thumb matched his own, weighted and strong.

She kissed his throat. "What are you afraid of?"

"I'm not--" he started, but that was a lie. He was afraid. "I am, of losing this."

"I won't go off and kill myself." She was staring at him steadily. Her eyes showed a little fear that she'd gone too far, but also a stubborn insistence that he face the truth.

Maybe all safety wasn't brittle as crystal. Maybe this time he could move and it wouldn't shatter around him. She offered him a new, strong safety, and one he could believe in.

Scott stroked her cheek. He leaned down to kiss her, and let desire take hold.

--

Ororo wasn't surprised to find Hank with a suitcase resting beside his leg as he locked the door to the room he'd been staying in. Vague disappointment was the only emotion she could muster. "Leaving, I see."

He had the grace to frown. "I suppose you haven't been watching the news today."

"I've been busy with things closer to home. Scott's meeting. The returning students. I still need to decide whether to try to find Jimmy's parents or not."

"You'll handle it all, Ororo. You're good at administration."

"I thought you were going to stay for a while."

"I was." He bent to pick up the luggage at his feet. He was wearing a full suit, tie tucked tight up against his neck. "But, the White House called. The president wants to talk to me. It has something to do with imprudent and prejudiced statements the Ambassador to the UN made today. The man's already resigned."

"So you have to run." Amazingly, her tone didn't sound bitter. She was getting past the resentment she'd been carrying. Scott was right. She was finding herself again. Maybe the person she was discovering would be different, no longer nostalgic about hot chocolate at night and less dogmatic in her sense of right and wrong, but Ororo was finally willing to look her in the face.

"It's the president," Hank said, as if that explained it all. For him it probably did.

"What about Cerebro? I thought Scott was counting on you to help him with the repairs. Finding Magneto is vital too, especially if he is possessed by one of these monsters." Eater of Souls was too gruesome for her to say.

"We finished the important troubleshooting this afternoon. I've arranged for the parts Scott needs to be delivered. And I'll contact a telepath I know in Chicago once I get back to Washington."

That finished things then. Ororo hoped he'd move first, that he'd make all the awkward gestures and mumbled goodbyes. But, he didn't. He just looked like he was about to say he was sorry.

So, she smiled broadly, the same smile she'd plastered on her face when he first arrived. "Then I guess I can only say 'good luck and safe trip'. I hope you'll at least call and keep us updated."

His expression shifted from relieved to surprised and maybe a little hurt. She liked the latter better. Vindictive, she supposed. "I will. I promise."

And then he was going. She watched his back until he disappeared down the stairs. Another promise had been broken. She waited for the hurt. It never came.

--

Marie remembered the first kiss she ever shared. It was a jerking, awkward touch, all butterflies-under-the-skin. She hadn't known, as she leaned forward, it would end with David pale and twitching in catatonic distress. Still, she'd been nervous. She'd liked David well enough, mostly because he didn't remind her of the risks when she talked about wanting adventure. He was cute too. Her best friend had told her he'd never be interested, and that fact as much as anything urged her toward him rather than away when he moved to kiss her.

But she'd never wanted to keep David. He'd been an opportunity to experience all those secrets the girls at school giggled about. She couldn't pass up that chance. But, she'd worried that kissing him would push her into a relationship she didn't really want.

She'd wanted just a kiss, and adventure. She'd gotten the destruction of her whole life.

It was different when she started dating Bobby. She'd learned what it was to be totally alone and now was in a place where people understood her. A boyfriend was part of being accepted. Bobby was safe, never frightening. Still, when he tried to kiss her, she shied away. She'd tried to tell herself it was fear of hurting him that stopped her, and that probably was a big part. But, Marie understood her power didn't take hold at the first brush of skin. She could count a few seconds before the leeching began. A few seconds wasn't much of a kiss, but it was something.

It was Bobby's insistence that she wouldn't hurt him that made her pull away. Every time he said, 'I'm not afraid' she felt as if she were being tested. If she loved him, she wouldn't use her powers on him. If she cared enough, she'd control her power.

She'd wanted security. She'd wound up feeling she would never be good enough to belong.

Which brought her to Scott and this moment of electrified excitement when they finally sank to the grass together. He'd abandoned his irritating reluctance for aggressive passion, and her whole body felt tingled. She'd wanted this for so long. Now it was happening and all she wanted was to forget thought and allow sensation to control her.

Her skin tingled where he touched, even through her clothing. She opened her mouth and his tongue tested the little space between her front teeth before she could draw it in. Taste, touch, even the sound of breeze rustling the leaves overhead sent shivers through her.

She'd moved beyond the need for adventure, beyond the insecurities about belonging. This wasn't mere curiosity. She felt none of the tight, nervous twitching that she associated with kissing David, certainly none of the dragging responsibility Bobby put on her. Scott was easy to touch. He instinctively tilted his head to avoid bumping noses or crashing teeth. When she slid her hands up his back, under his shirt, he moved just right against her.

She could kiss him as long as she wanted, as deeply as she wanted. There was no risk, no cost, nothing to worry about this time. _Let go_, she told herself. _Enjoy._

That he knew how to kiss added to the pleasure, of course, but Marie didn't want to think about that. She didn't want to remember he'd loved anyone before, or that he might not ever be totally and completely hers. She wanted to believe they were unique in this moment. He said he wasn't casual. She was only now realizing how serious this all was for her as well.

The horrible emptiness she'd felt this after noon when she thought he wanted to reject her, the longing fantasies, the confusion, even her anger at Bobby were symptoms. She should have recognized what they meant. Only love could be this easy, and comfortable, and terrifyingly important.

Her mind rebelled. Want him, yes. He was handsome and sexy and she could touch him. But, love him? She was a renegade soul whose first fantasies were adventure trips hitchhiking across the continent. Scott was stuffy, demanding, rules-bound. She tacked beads and feathers to her walls. He stacked his quarters on the dresser. And he loved so deeply he'd fight from outside this dimension to save someone he cared about. He was brave enough to die for what he believed was right.

She'd watched him struggle to lead even when he couldn't be seen. He pushed himself, challenged himself, when most people would curl into a little self-pitying ball. And when Storm unfairly told him he hadn't done enough, he just pushed himself harder. Marie wanted to cradle him, to support him, to be worthy of taking his back in his fight. He matched her, contrasted her, forced her to grow up. He was so much more than sex to her. She couldn't relegate him to a tryst.

On that thought desire twisted her insides, a friction coil that made her spine arch and her nails dig into the skin at his back. No soft butterflies this time. This was a predatory, possessive longing. Need more than want. She pressed her face against his neck. The skin there was taut, smooth except for a tiny patch under his jaw he'd missed while shaving. She licked the rough place, adoring the small imperfection. The touch of her tongue made him gasp.

That was exciting.

She pushed her hand up his back -- his skin was so warm -- and into his hair. It had been so short when they met, military and harsh. Now it had grown out and curled. That should have softened him. She liked that it didn't.

He used his teeth against her shoulder, and little shivers radiated from the spot. She hadn't realized before that the skin there was exposed. "How did that happen?"

"What?"

"Nothing." And then in a burst she said, "I think I love you."

Scott pulled back enough to look at her. Behind his glasses she saw his eyes glittering as narrow rings of crimson fire eclipsed by his expanded pupils. "I don't mind that at all."

A vivid blue sky, the color of his eyes when she first looked into them, framed his face. Cool breeze rippled against their bodies. Under her skin she was electrified. And she wanted to freeze the moment before the rest of Irene's vision, whatever it was, could push in. If they never moved the world couldn't turn and pull them apart.

_This is the pivot. We'll never be this close again_.

This time the tremble racing through her came from fear. Marie fought that unwanted emotion. She fisted her hands in his shirt and he had to struggle a bit with the sleeves before she could pull it off. But, then she had only skin to press against from shoulders to hips. That was glorious. She felt wild and powerful. She could beat the fear of her power, of her past. She could defeat anything. Without thinking, she raked teeth over his ear, bit hard into the tight muscle of his shoulder.

He let out a surprised sound, half hiss and half growl. Perhaps the commander had his own wild side. Now that was a delicious thought. Marie wanted to slide into mindless exploration of the possibility.

There was no reason for paranoia. They would have a thousand moments just as close, a life together. She would learn what it was to fall asleep pressed next to him, to wake up curled together. No reason that shouldn't be their future.

Except she knew, suddenly, that future wouldn't be. With the same certainty that had told her touching him would make him visible, she knew sex would pull him fully back to reality. Once that happened he'd be as vulnerable to her power as everyone else.

She squeezed her arms around him as if that would crush the horrible fears. She looped a leg over his hip, pulling him down hard, and wished they were already out of their jeans so they could join and he could take her thoughts away. She didn't want to think anymore. She wanted the wonderful, mindless sensations of a moment earlier. The air had grown so heavy it was hard to breathe, much less talk. Her heart beat so frantically she thought her ribs might rattle.

"I love you and I'm going to lose you." The words slipped out along with the sorrow they brought.

"You won't." As if to prove it, he pressed his body closer. He kissed her eyelids and cradled her face between his hands.

"My shadow man," she whispered as she stroked fingers over his mouth. She hadn't imagined Scott's face when she first pretended, but now his was the only face she could see when she thought of touching. The thought of losing him now hurt more than leaving her parents had, more than thinking she would never belong anywhere had, more than the fear of dying or of killing. She felt as if a piece of her own self was tearing away.

Scott cocked his head and his mouth flattened in the way that said he was puzzling out her name for him. God, she even loved how he frowned.

"You won't lose me," he repeated.

"You promise?" Marie wanted to wrap herself in his confidence. It would be so easy to pretend he was right, but she knew the truth now. Her power would save him, and doom them. It was inevitable. Unless she called a halt to their intimacies.

She could. If she told him she wanted to stop, Scott wouldn't push. That would mean they would never be completely together, but she would always be able to kiss him, to touch his skin, to hold him close. Torturous, perhaps, but would that be worse than making love once and then never feeling his skin again?

"I promise. We'll be good together, Marie. I swear."

"Better than good." He would be the best she'd ever imagined -- hero and lover and companion. Her voice choked a little. She almost told him the whole truth.

If she did, he would roll away. He would decide they needed to stop short of sex for her. He'd try to choose what was best for her. Not himself. Never himself.

Remembering his good was her job now. It was part of loving him. She remembered that moment when she struggled up what remained of Alcatraz to save him. That hadn't been about having him. It was just about him being alive and whole and able to still be. Scott mattered whether he was with her or not. Maybe that's what love really was, being able to care about him more than herself.

She felt tears stab the corners of her eyes.

"If you want to stop, we can." He shifted a bit, ready to give her whatever she needed just as she'd known he would. "I just need a minute to--"

"No." She caught her hand around the back of his neck to still him. "Don't stop."

_I love you enough to let you go._

--

Ororo checked on Jimmy after Hank left. The boy made a tiny ball in the bed. A nightlight cast shadows over the twisted sheets surrounding him. But, he no longer seemed to be having nightmares. She'd watched so many children go through this same transition when they arrived at the school. First they were frightened, then shy, and then finally they bloomed. The process reminded her that hope revealed itself at the end of dark journeys.

She closed the door quietly then wandered down the hall toward Charles' office. The space still needed to be cleared of his personal items and made ready for the next stage of the school's life. Besides, she wasn't going to sleep much tonight and the area really didn't need an impromptu storm, which she'd likely create if she went flying.

The office would never have been so quiet at dusk when Charles was alive. He seemed the most energized when the school was busy. He'd leave his windows open so he could hear the children playing after classes. She missed Charles so much.

The monitor from his computer was glowing faintly, whitening all the edges of the dark wood. Strange that it should be on now. She was sure she and Hank had turned the system off. But, Charles had so many automated routines on his equipment. Any number of robotic signals could have restarted the unit. Ororo stepped around to turn it off and saw the transmission message written in blue across the screen. Who would be trying to contact Charles now? Everyone close enough to have a link to the private system knew he was dead.

She tapped the response code and Moira's face filled the screen.

"Hello, Ororo," the woman's deep brogue rolled the r-sounds. "I hope you are sitting down."

You should be able to see I'm not. She slid into the desk chair, dreading more surprises. She'd just steadied herself. "What's happened?"

"It's Charles. He's alive and he wants to come home."


	21. Chapter 21

Note: Okay, it's been forever and this isn't even a very long chapter. But, I had to write the next chapter and part of the following one before I could be sure what was in here was correct. So, 22 should be up soon. I just have to edit it. And maybe, with a bit of luck in my mundane schedule, the long waits for chapters won't be quite so long.

Thanks to everyone who commented. I love you guys. And thanks for hanging in with me. I hope the rest of the story doesn't disappoint.

Disclaimer: Long waits between chapters doesn't change the fact I own nothing but my words, drat. The world and characters and all that still belong to other people.

* * *

Chapter 21

Bobby couldn't wait until the rest of the students returned in a week or so. In the evening the mansion was too quiet. He couldn't find anything to distract him, and he really wanted a distraction. Rogue's dumping of him was still raw. If he gave his mind time to wander back over those events, he wound up feeling like an idiot.

Some hero he'd turned out to be. Hell, he'd taken a swing at their team leader, and been put on the floor for it. Bobby's shoulders slumped. It had taken Rogue flat out dumping him to make him see how stupid he'd been over her. He'd even hidden Magneto's helmet under his bed to impress her.

And what was he going to do with that helmet? He couldn't exactly take it to Cyclops now. What would he say? He didn't think, 'Found this and thought you might want it' would work after he'd tried to punch the guy.

Head down, hands driven deep into his pockets as he surged down the hall, Bobby nearly ran into Peter when he turned the corner. They both jumped back an instant before collision. Peter flushed and folded his arms quickly. Only when Bobby caught that reaction did he realize Peter had been holding Kitty's hand.

Kitty, still close by Peter's side, scowled. "Just what are you stalking, Bobby? And do you plan to kill it when you find it?"

"Just trying to figure some things out," Bobby muttered. Kitty's mouth flattened into a pinched line and her brows furrowed. Clearly, she knew he was regretting some of his recent decisions, especially about the helmet, but she didn't challenge him in front of Peter. It wasn't in Kitty to betray a confidence, even if she thought the secret should be out in the open.

"We're all trying to figure things out," Kitty offered, and her hand slipped back into Peter's grip. Instead of continuing on their way, she tugged Peter into following Bobby. "Everything around here is changing so fast. How can any of us keep up?"

War. Monsters. Team members were dead, then alive, and then dead again. Rogue was in love with Cyclops. It was a lot to take in. When Bobby thought about it that way, he felt a little less stupid. "Maybe we don't have to keep up," he said. "Maybe we just have to catch up."

Light spilled out of the open doorway to the professor's old office. Someone was likely packing up books again. Ms. Monroe, probably. She seemed to be having her own troubles adjusting to all the changes. Bobby probably would have passed by quietly, leaving Ms. Monroe to her privacy. But, Kitty peeked in. Peter lingered beside her, and Bobby found himself stopping as well.

"It's Charles. He's alive and wants to come home."

Had whoever Ms. Monroe was talking to just said the professor had returned from the dead too? That was three for three. Bobby wasn't sure how he felt about that. Technically, he supposed, Dr. Grey hadn't actually returned from the dead. She'd been taken over by a death monster that wanted to destroy the world, which made her reappearance an unfiltered disaster. Cyclops hadn't been strictly dead, and Bobby supposed he had to admit that their leader coming back had only been bad for him personally. Cyclops, after all, hadn't turned evil, just remembered he had a sex drive, which, in most cases, wouldn't be counted as a bad thing. So, he'd call that recovery called a mixed blessing.

But, whatever the details, Bobby couldn't escape the fact what was passing for resurrection so far hadn't been chocolate bunnies and tulips. Would the professor's return balance things by being an absolute good thing? Or was he going to follow the trend and fall somewhere between a disappointment and apocalypse?

Kitty seemed to be having similar thoughts. She scowled deeply at the news. "I know that voice. That's the doctor the professor was working with in Scotland," she whispered. Then her tone grew grave. "I can't believe he would have actually done it."

"Done what?" Peter asked.

"Hush. Listen." Bobby leaned closer to the opening. This was important and he didn't want to miss details.

Ms. Monroe sat facing the monitor, and therefore turned away from the door. Her whole attention seemed fixed on the screen. "Alive? How is that possible? When is he coming? How is he?"

"That could take a long time to explain, Ororo," the Scotswoman said. "And I'll be coming with Charles so I can answer all your questions in person. As for when, we'll be arranging a flight to New York and should be arriving tomorrow morning at around ten your time."

"Is he there now? Can I speak to him?"

"He's getting ready for the trip." The Scotswoman sounded a bit condescending to Bobby, which troubled him further. Something about all this wasn't right, and Ms. Monroe seemed to sense it too. She frowned at the screen and the invisible doctor quickly reassured her, "Don't worry. He's better than fine. You'll see tomorrow."

"I'll be there to pick you up, of course." Ms. Monroe got the details of the flight and tapped them into her PDA, then reached to hang up on the caller.

"One other bit, Ororo. Charles would like this to be a surprise. Don't go telling the others, all right?"

A nod, nothing more from Ms. Monroe. Bobby frowned himself. Maybe he was just excessively suspicious given recent events, but he thought they should be more cautious about bringing home dead people. He considered stepping in and telling Ms. Monroe that.

Bobby glanced at the other two. Neither of them moved. Maybe letting on that they'd overheard wasn't such a good idea. If Ms. Monroe hadn't decided to follow up on her own uncertainty she might not be open to listening to his. Ms. Monroe hadn't seen them hanging about the door. Bobby gestured the others back.

They'd crept a way down the hall before Kitty pulled them all to a halt and stared at Bobby. The question was clear on her face -- what's going on?

He didn't think he could explain. He'd already strained her trust with the helmet mistake. "If it's supposed to be a secret, maybe we should pretend to be surprised."

"Maybe." For Kitty to accept that she had to be seriously troubled herself. Peter rested a hand on her shoulder, a silent prodding. She shook her head. "Not here, Peter. Let's head out toward that old hideout by the lake where we'll be good and alone. Then, I'll tell you what happened in class recently."

-----

Scott loved the moments immediately following climax. His body still sang with pleasure, but he had control again, and he could once again focus on Marie. She'd stopped shuddering around him, and her sated, labored breathing pushed her body up and down heavily now, beneath his. He felt her heartbeat through his own chest. Her fingers brushed up his sides to his shoulders, creating a tingling path along his skin. He kissed her neck, and in the same action caught the changes in her scent.

The first intimate thing he ever noticed about her was a whiff of vanilla perfume. She still wore it, but he'd come to associate her with something deeper and stronger, a fragrance that was smooth as the professor's cognac and wholly Marie. Sex spiked the mélange he was sure no one had ever smelled but him. That thought made him bury his face against her neck.

"Scott, no. You have to move."

_Move?_ It took him a moment to realize she was pushing against his shoulders. Questions crowded his mind rapidly. What had he done wrong? Had he hurt her? Did she regret what they'd done?

"Scott, please. It's going to hurt."

A dry-ice cold gripped him an instant later. His strength leeched out at every point their bodies touched. It took all his will to plant hands in the grass to either side of her body, pull away, and fall, limp and panting, onto his back. "Dear God."

"Oh Lord, Scott, are you okay?" Marie knelt over him. Her voice wavered on the edge of panic.

"Yes. Don't worry." He stared at the sky, thin clouds sweeping across. Honestly, _okay_ wasn't really accurate. His body threatened to sink into the ground. He felt dirt grind beneath his shoulders and smelled the grass blades his body had crushed. The sensations were strange though something told him they shouldn't be. He felt strange for feeling strange. But he wasn't going to die. Her power had simply captured part of him.

"Sorry." The misery in her voice cut him. He didn't care that her power caused him pain. The risk had been worth the reward. But, he hated hearing her regret. Sorry was the last thing he wanted her to be. He reached up, muscles protesting the movement, then remembered why he couldn't touch her face and let his hand hover in front of her face.

"I'm not sorry, Marie. I don't want you to be."

"Of course you aren't."

He watched her turn her face and duck her chin. Her hair fell as a curtain, helping to hide whatever expression she didn't want him to see. Then, slowly, she curled the rest of her body away, knees against her chest, back toward him. She was cutting him off from her. That severing of connection was worse than any agony her power caused him.

He needed to bridge that physical distance between them before the emotional separation became impossible to cross. But, his bones seemed too heavy for his muscles. He was afraid she'd drained too much of him and that movement would make him pass out entirely.

"You needed to unfold," she continued, her voice choking on a sob. "It's a good thing."

Unfolded. That explained his body's familiar strangeness. He'd grown so used to having to fight the very air for existence that he'd forgotten what it was like to completely inhabit real space. Her power had brought him completely back. No, not her power. Their intimacy.

And Marie must have known, beforehand, that making love to him would take away their ability to touch. Otherwise she would be more surprised, less resigned. She could have stopped short of intercourse. He wouldn't have protested restraint. She'd chosen not to. Because she wanted him, and wanted him to be whole. His throat tightened at the thought.

Scott could see only her back, a hip, one bended leg and arm. Still, he noted all the details he'd missed in the heat of love making. A line of small, yellowing bruises studded her leg. She'd probably gotten them while rescuing him at Alcatraz. He suspected there were more, hidden now by her posture. Tiny blades of grass clung to her skin and hair. And her shoulders shook ever so slightly, the only hint she might be crying.

Scott still felt half frozen from her power and his limbs seemed to jerk forward too quickly, making him clumsy. But, he had to touch her. He forced his body to move. His discarded shirt lay next to him in the grass. He wrapped it around her shoulders so he could grip her arms.

"Marie, don't leave. Not now."

"I'm not leaving." She sounded as if she were falling into some hole inside herself.

He tightened his hold as if that would keep her closer. "You are, in all the ways that count. In another moment, I'm afraid I'll lose you."

She worked her arms through the sleeves of the shirt. He waited until she snuggled the fabric around her before enfolding her in a real embrace. Her fingers, still buried in the sleeves, locked around his. At least she didn't want to sever their closeness. He held her in silence, willing the sense of intimacy to return.

"I can open my eyes," she whispered after a moment. "I didn't think I'd be able to."

"Open…?" An instant later he followed her thoughts. "My power."

She looked at him over her shoulder. Yellow fire -- his fire but dampened and controlled -- glittered in her eyes from beneath a curtain of silver-tinged hair. "I thought it was uncontrollable, like mine."

"An old injury preventing me from controlling the beams, Marie. In anyone else it would be much safer."

She squeezed his fingers. "I think everything is safe with you."

"Even you," he whispered. Then he pressed his cheek against her back. The shirt fabric rubbed against his face, soft but not nearly as soft as her skin would have been. His own heat radiated from her body. He listened to her heart beating, determined and steady, and to the more subtle beat of the power under his, a match to the tempo that pounded under his own skin. The distance between them evaporated. He felt as if he could push himself inside her soul. "Especially you."

"I believe you. I trust you." Her grip on his fingers tightened. "But I'm going to miss the -- the other stuff."

The memory of their love making was new enough that it sprang in full detail to Scott's mind. There had been nothing cautious about Marie, no tentative uncertainty. She'd shocked him a little with her aggression. He'd loved her passion. It surprised him. And he struggled with how to tell her he'd miss it all as much as she would. "I know. I--"

She overran his stumbling efforts. "I mean, I looked forward to sleeping with you. I imagined curling up against your body in the dark and knowing I'd wake up feeling your same warmth. I believe that you don't want to lose what we have together, but you have to admit a certain specialness is out of reach for us now."

He couldn't lie to her. He could give her his loyalty, his mind, his heart, but never again his body. It grew more difficult to swallow around the constriction in his throat. He hugged her closer. His cheek bumped the bones of her spine. "We have to find a different specialness."

Marie tucked the shirt collar over his arm then rested her head against him. She felt so warm in his arms, warm against his cheek. He loved her. The truth sat in front of his mind a long time before he dared to absorb it.

"You are different inside," she said. "I mean every time my power acts on someone I wind up with a part of them in my head. You'll always be there now."

"That's something." But not something unique, because everyone she touched was there.

"You're the only one not screaming in pain. You're calm." Another little shift and she kissed his arm through the fabric. "Almost as if you are happy to be there."

"I was. I am."

She shivered. "I don't know if that makes it better or worse. It reminds me of how we could have been. And that we can't be that now."

"That's not true," he told her, more in desperation than certainty. There had to be something that would hold them together. They couldn't drift apart to become merely friends, teammates, acquaintances.

"I wish that were true"

"Don't wish." All wishing ever did was make fantasy. Reality, both the sort he'd just regained and the deeper, more internal form was what mattered. "We'll find a way to make it true."

Another little shiver. He realized this one was laughter, though without joy. "How are we going to do that? This problem isn't going away. Loving you isn't going to give me a way to control my power. I can't fix me."

"You don't need to be fixed. There's nothing wrong with you."

"Nothing wrong with any of us. That's what everyone keeps telling me." She turned so they were facing one another. She was no longer trying to use his shirt as a shield. It hung loosely down her body, and a line of pale skin showed down the front. "I believe that. I don't want to change what I am anymore. But--"

"But, it's hard to deal with. I know." The twin edges of being a mutant -- the special power and its ability to destroy -- could cripple a person. Scott caught the faint glow in her eyes again. The gold shimmer reflected in the lighter streak of hair hanging before her face. He could be jealous of the ease with which she controlled his own power, if he let himself. Instead he thought about how holding that force inside herself would help her understand him, how feeling the pull of her power gave him the same insight into her. "The power joins us, you know."

"My power?" She meant what she'd said before, the piece of him that remained inside her mind.

"Not just yours. Mine as well." The truth bloomed inside him, making his heart beat faster. "There is something your power mixed with mine gives us, something I've never shared with anyone, or ever hoped to."

Marie settled back on her heels, waiting for him to explain. He decided he'd rather show her.

"Look at me and turn on my power, Marie. Just a little."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"You can't. It's part of me."

The red glow overwhelmed her eyes. He'd had no idea his own eyes looked so wild and alien. He'd never found a way to see them, until now. She'd focused her gaze on his chest and he felt the power tapping there against his skin. Its steady rhythm echoed the one he always felt inside himself.

Her eyes opened a little wider, broadening the beams, and the tap against his sternum became a steady thrum. Behind the familiar beat, he caught a foreign cadence -- Marie's own rhythm pulsing beneath his. He felt her attention move a little lower down his body, and then her heart accelerated.

Scott's stomach clenched. He was suddenly very aware of his own nakedness.

"I didn't get to look much before," she whispered. Her gaze dipped a little farther and she startled at his reaction.

"I can feel you looking at me."

"Is that what we can share, me touching you with my eyes?"

"That, and this. I've never been able to show anyone -- "He steadied his breathing and took his visor off." -- me."

Jean may have dampened his power so she could see his unpowered face, but she hadn't seen him as he truly was. This was the real revelation, this exposure of burning eyes and a power he didn't have to fear because it was inside her as well.

He watched her experience the pulsing touch as he had. She looked slowly up until she took in his real eyes, his real face, and the beat of her regard felt like kisses. He managed to swallow twice, to not twitch while she studied him.

"I like your eyes this way, even better than blue," she said.

He had expected acceptance, yet wasn't prepared. He had to settle himself, clench his fists and remember not to pull her close. Only eyes could touch, only powers. "This may be a strange sort of closeness, but it is ours."

"Only ours." She licked her lips quickly. Scott memorized her mouth, the way it bent upward more on one side than the other as she smiled, the lingering moisture from her tongue glittering on her lips. Against his own mouth, he felt her eyes' caress. Not quite a kiss, but close.

"I like it," she whispered.

"So do I." Then she slowly opened his shirt so his gaze could wander down.


	22. Chapter 22

Note: Thanks to everyone for the great comments. It's wonderful to hear from everyone. Here's 22. 23 is moving along, but not finished yet. Thanks for hanging in with me.

* * *

Chapter 22

Logan leaned back against the sagging wall of an abandoned, crumbling cottage at the edge of the estate's woods while his mind roamed through foreign memories from decades earlier. The cottage had probably been a hunting cabin or men's retreat when it was first built. Later, some of the Institute's students had turned it into a kind of play fort complete with hand-made flags, now faded and shredding. The memories, in contrast, took place in a green, hot hell.

That hell wasn't the Vietnam of movies, not the new pro-soldier ones nor the old anti-war versions. It was a land of fear rather than courage, of hate and exhaustion and loneliness. Logan placed Stryker's memories around 1969. That was before a majority of Americans hated the war, before My Lai shifted from victory to massacre in the news. Nixon was in office, and not yet seen as a crook. It was spring, probably, though Logan couldn't be sure of that. Some guys were painting 'hippie' on their helmets, but no one had heard of Woodstock yet.

He shifted his position against the stone wall and took a long drag from his cigar. The tended woods rustled and there was a relentless chorus of cicada somewhere nearby, very different sounds from those in that long ago jungle. Still, the smoke in his lungs and the trees overhead helped him run a single memory to ground. He'd been sitting, propped against a tree, smoking a cigarette and thinking about the letter from his wife still in his pocket waiting to be read. The new guy, Logan, crouched nearby, staring into the jungle. Was this one going to make it?

It was unsettling to see himself as another person in memories. Logan shook off the disorientation and tried to focus back on the scene. The letter in the pocket, why was it troubling? Why hadn't Stryker read it?

The letter had been in his pocket nearly a week, since the last time they'd gotten a mail drop. They were on recon now, faces smeared green and gray, bandoliers crossing their chests even when they slept. It would be years before he would be able to sleep without that crossed weight on him, but that was one of Logan's own memories, confusing and off point. The letter, that was what he had to remember. That was the key to this intruder in his mind.

He returned to William Stryker's memory of sitting in the dirt, back against the tree, and thinking about the letter. Stryker dreaded reading another report of his son's troubles. He was so far from home, impotent to help his struggling wife deal with a child who, at eight, might well be going insane. Or worse. William feared much worse. Even here in the jungle he'd heard rumors from home of kids born with strange powers. Some people thought those mutants, or their parents, had been damaged by nuclear testing. He didn't want to believe Jason's problems could be the result of mutation, though. Mutation couldn't be fixed. Still, it hurt to think his child was terrifying people because he missed his dad.

William sucked on the cigarette until it burned to the filter, then put the stump out in the damp dirt next to his boot. The new guy was studying him closely. "Something wrong, Sir."

"Nope, Logan. Nothing at all. I just hate the jungle."

The guy, couldn't really call Logan a kid even though he was new, stared off into the trees again. He wore an unsettling expression that suggested this wasn't the first jungle he'd seen, nor the worst. "Something to hate about everywhere, I suppose."

"But most places have something to love too." He thought about his home in Missouri. The river at St. Joseph was so wide and icy blue. Not like the rivers here that slithered like brown snakes through jungle and rice paddy.

Logan shrugged, not revealing whatever he was thinking. He did that a lot too. The staring and the secretiveness would make most people suspicious, he supposed. Not Stryker though, Logan realized as the memory ended abruptly.

Logan had expected an oily disgust to permeate Stryker's memories. The man he'd left to die at Alkali Lake had been a monster. But, the mind sharing space with his cared about his men, and worried about the young wife and child he'd been forced to leave behind when he went to war. A series of memories flashed, without time or place connections. Stryker wishing he'd gone to seminary as he'd once intended, because as a minister he might have known how to give comfort to a dying soldier. Stryker staring at a worn picture of his family; the glossy surface being suddenly marred by a drop of rain, or a tear. The man in his mind didn't fit the one he'd abandoned at Alkali Lake. Not at all.

It started to rain where Logan lounged by the cottage too. He looked up into the shadowed trees at the fading sky, then decided to finish his cigar inside where it would be dry. Stryker had changed between Vietnam and Alkali Lake. But then, the war had changed a lot of men. It had probably changed him too, though he couldn't remember.

Inside, the shed smelled of dirt and mildew. The kids had added a small game table to the collection of old shelves and benches. One of the metal legs had rusted through so the table now tottered, but the log stools arranged around it remained solid. Logan dragged one to the doorway and sat where he could look out into the darkening woods. Beyond the trees the estate's small lake looked dead and black already. The mansion, on the far side of the water, was hidden in fog.

He and Stryker had spent a lot of nights in huts not too different from this cottage during their stint in Nam. The shabby hovels only lowered the already trench-deep opinions a lot of the guys had about the local population, but that was unfair. Most of those huts had been poor, but neat places before some army or another tramped through. Sometimes you could see signs of how the loving home some hut had once been -- a pot still carefully tucked into a niche designed for it, or a mat woven in a neat, intricate design. Stryker noticed those things. They used to talk about the tragedy those details represented when they had nothing else.

Another of Stryker's memories fell into place. It was late autumn and their squad hunkered down on the crest of a hill overlooking a broad plateau that included a lake. People back home thought of Vietnam as just jungles, river, and rice paddies. But, it had a varied landscape -- mangrove swamps and forests of bamboo or evergreens, leaves of every size and shape, paths of mud and paths lined with stone, massive hilltop shrines, bustling cities, primitive villages.

The cluster of buildings below fell into the final category, a grubby cluster of straw thatched houses trapped between lake, hills, and jungle. A handful of brick buildings stood a little farther out, in their own clearing, and beyond them, flat and boggy fields. What stood out was the lack of livestock. Villages were normally clogged with all manner of animals from dogs to geese to oxen. But, through the binoculars, William could only see people moving among the huts. The distant rice fields looked haphazardly tended, as well. The oddities made the back of his neck itch.

He'd already sent Martin and Lopez down to recon. They were good men and it had only been an hour. Still, he had the feeling something had gone wrong. No gunfire, no radio contact, but a warning tickle wouldn't stop crawling up and down his spine. He didn't want to lose more men. If orders allowed him to forget that village, he would have.

"Don't like the smell from that place," Logan said. The guy was no longer new, no longer someone to fret over. Hell, the guy had uncanny luck. It was almost like God didn't want to let the man die. The temptation to send Logan in first every time hovered in his mind. But, it wasn't fair to ask even the luckiest man on Earth to take all the risks.

"What are you getting?" He'd exploited Logan's supernaturally sharp senses more than once in the past. William thought the guy had to be one of those mutants they heard about from time to time, when he let himself think about mutants.

He thrust those thoughts away, disgusted with himself. Worrying about Jason wouldn't help him. Only focusing on his job here would finish the war and get him home where he could do some real good for the boy.

"Not sure." Logan rubbed his nose. His brows folded low over his eyes. "Something's not normal down there."

In the cabin, Logan's claws popped suddenly. His ears belatedly registered the sound of feet slapping wet, dead leaves in the distance. A gasp of laughter followed, still far off. He forced his muscles to relax. The claws slowly retracted and his breathing evened out. Just kids out in the woods. Nothing worse. Nothing from memory.

Yet, he couldn't completely shake off the fear that had grabbed him. In his mind he saw himself again through Stryker's eyes as he tried to rub the unwanted scent-that-wasn't-really-scent from his nose. That image, that memory, frightened him. Logan was used to fearing for the kids, for friends, sometimes for the world. But, he'd long gotten past any fear for himself. What could be taken from a man who had lost everything and couldn't die?

But on that day, looking down on that village, he'd been afraid for all of them, himself included. Of what, and why, he didn't know. And he wouldn't know unless he settled his mind enough to confront the rest of the memories. Logan straightened his back. He shook more tension from his arms, and crushed out the end of his cigar in the dirt floor. Then, he emptied his mind, waiting for what terrified him, telling himself he was the hunter of that terror and not the prey.

Still autumn. Still the same day as Stryker's last memory. He was moving through jungle now, tracking the sensation that troubled him. He'd told Stryker he smelled something wrong. That wasn't accurate. Instead, all his senses seemed to combine in a supernatural dread. He couldn't pin-point any one element of that danger. It caught in his nose, scrambled across his skin, made his ears ring. It was as if the warning came from inside rather than out, some sense beyond sense telling his nose and ears and flesh to register a threat. He didn't know how to follow the fear to its source.

The muck grabbed his boots with every step. It felt like walking in drying cement. Goldstein scuttled through the trees nearby, his back nearly level with the ground. The kid was only twenty, but already a veteran, a nice Jewish boy from Kansas who doted on some gentile princess named Molly and built train sets in his basement with his dad. Logan worried that Goldstein wouldn't make it through today.

_My memory, not Stryker's._ Logan managed to absorb the truth without breaking concentration. After Martin and Lopez failed to report back, Stryker had ordered them all down. Most were eager for a fight. Sitting in the dirt gave you nothing to think about except how much you wanted to go home. At least blood and fear of death offered a distraction from loneliness.

He and Goldstein crept toward the village from the East. The rattle of automatic gunfire told him most of the squad had already reached the target. Goldstein sprinted forward, crashing through the underbrush and gone instantly. Logan had little choice but to follow, though his mind continued to scream for caution. The wind shifted, bringing a whiff of acrid smoke that clung to the inner walls of his nose. His senses, always acute, elevated so that he heard the creak of hidden springs that held down half buried mines and the strands of stretched wire glittered in the shadows. But, the jungle offered no natural, living sounds, not even the movement of insects or lizards, to Logan's hypersensitive ears.

Leaves rustled. Branches snapped. Goldstein's heavy breathing rasped somewhere ahead. A high-toned, metal ping followed by an explosion combined with a scream, told him Goldstein caught a trap.

Though Logan tracked the single, shrill cry easily, it took him several minutes to reach the other soldier. Goldstein had almost made it out of the jungle. He lay in a little pocket of clear ground at the very edge of the trees, face down. The smell of blood remained faint. Maybe the kid wasn't that badly injured. Logan concentrated on the surrounding jungle as he knelt. He turned Goldstein over.

Pain shot into his torso, hot and shocking. Knife. Lung cut. Near the heart. Pulse suddenly thinning. His mind always registered injury with precision. He felt the wounds healing deep inside his body before he realized that Goldstein had stabbed him.

The young man's eyes, which normally only glittered with excitement when he talked about trains or his girlfriend, sparked with joy. The kid was grinning at him. Logan managed, "What the hell?" Then an unseen assailant toppled him.

His body moved without thought -- twist to face the attack, one hand up to catch the blow, grab his own knife with the other. The slight figure grappling with him proved surprisingly strong. Logan fought on, and he felt heat flood his muscles. He'd stabbed his attacker a dozen times as they rolled in the dirt. But, the man wouldn't die.

He sensed a second attack from the left, too fast for his eye to catch, too silent for his ears to hear. He slashed in that direction, felt the blade carve through a substance very like muscle and flesh. There was no time to look at what he might have injured. His first attacker had both hands around Logan's throat.

He broke the man's arms. A vicious cut across the man's throat nearly separated head and body. As the man fell back, however, Logan saw -- no wrong word -- sensed two rope-like appendages swinging toward him. He cut one, grabbed the other. Then, he had to stare.

He'd managed to catch an oily stalk double the thickness of his thumb. The tip glistened with jellied eggs and twitched frantically in his fist. But, the other end of the stalk simply ended about six inches out from his grip, as if it had popped through a door in thin air. That sense of dread enveloped him. It was this wriggling stalk, this alien monster, that had terrified him earlier.

Instinctively, he knew the thing was attached to the small man he'd just killed. If he'd truly killed the attacker. Not enough blood sprayed from the neck wound. The eyes refused to glass over. And, the man continued to grin.

Logan felt the thing in his hand strain for freedom. Several stingers pushed out of the fibrous neck. They stabbed at his hands. The venom they injected burned, and for a moment he worried that might kill him. But, if anything, it accelerated his own body's healing.

The fat eggs began to drop wriggling monsters onto his arm. The creatures flickered as if about to vanish, then shriveled to dead husks instead. Logan severed the stalk with his knife and threw it to the ground.

The cries and the gunfire from the village had ceased. When Logan looked around both the man he'd been fighting and Goldstein had disappeared into the jungle. He stood a moment, staring at the alien thing at his feet. Monster? Demon? Eater of Souls, his present day mind supplied. The little Vietnamese man who attacked him had been infected, as were the rest of the villagers. Stryker's entire team had charged in, never knowing what they faced.

In the cabin, Logan was sweating despite the chill rain outside. He didn't want to finish reliving the memory of that village. He steadied his breathing, tried to force his mind back. It rebelled. He caught the events in snatches, like still photographs, instead of living them. He saw villagers dead and himself demanding the bodies be burned. He recalled the horror growing inside him as, throughout the night, more and more of the soldiers returned to camp. Men who should have been dead. Men who were no longer human.

He'd been forced to live among them, constantly reminded how they'd changed from friends who talked pinup girls and baseball into monsters whose only joy was blood and death. They would have liked to kill him. Stryker especially. But, of course, they couldn't.

Logan chose to avoid those memories. He focused, instead, on a time months later, after Stryker and half the unit had rotated back to the US. The new commander had not been taken by a monster, so the soldiers were lying low. Logan and Goldstein were patrolling through an abandoned rice paddy alone. Up to their waists in water, weapons held over their heads to keep them dry, it seemed the perfect time to test a theory he'd been forming.

A single kick took Goldstein's legs out from under him. He came up sputtering and mad, that cold monster's outrage turning his long face into a mask. He took a swing with the butt of his rifle, now water-logged and unable to be fired until it was clean. Logan dodged the blow. "You can't kill me," he mocked the creature. "You can't do anything."

But it could. He'd seen one of them kill with their eyes just a few weeks earlier. That was the theory he needed to test. A few more feints got the thing really angry. They angered easily, another weakness. Then, it materialized over Goldstein's head. The stench nearly sent Logan to his knees.

A doughy mass, swelling and retracting with each breath, draped over Goldstein's skull and down his back. Above, a tiny head lolled like a marble on a bed of old pudding, and on that head a nest of red eyes quivered. Logan felt one eye focus on him. He focused on the long snout protruding from the belly just below the head. That jointed beak arched in front of Goldstein's face. Its tip penetrated the left side of his chest.

Two eyes connected. Logan leapt right, forcing the monster to begin again. He let three eyes lock on him before he moved again, left this time, and closer. Always closer. Not so much that the beast would sense the threat. The fourth time he let five eyes reach him and it was as if he will to exist were being sucked out of him. Gritting his teeth, Logan dove at Goldstein. He caught hold of the monster's beak.

The Eater vanished instantly, but, as he'd suspected, the beak in his fist was caught in this reality. It couldn't dematerialize. Logan severed the beak at a joint. Black fluid spurted from the wound. Goldstein collapsed.

Later, Logan would learn that Goldstein recovered. He returned to being the guy who loved model trains. There was a huge hole in his memory from the last several months of his tour. About half the victims Logan later liberated from their Eaters recovered, in fact. He cleaned up the infected troops still in Vietnam, and worried about what was happening with those, like Stryker, who returned to the States.

It would be years before Logan fully understood the monsters. He learned details like how they reproduced and how they organized in groups as he hunted Stryker and his cluster of Eater pals down. But for the rest of his two year tour in Nam he could only wait and think. Every night he would lie in the damp and wonder how long it took for one of those monsters to mature and make its own young. He hoped he would not return home to a land of monsters.

A branch snapped outside the cottage and Logan felt his claws pop. He dove toward the doorway, only stopped by the sound of high pitched laughter that quickly descended into a terrified shriek. Kitty gulped loudly and flattened into the doorframe. He'd stopped his claws a quarter inch into where her nose should have been. For a moment, he could only stare at her.

"Like to unphase here," she whimpered. Logan sheathed the claws and stepped back, mortified he'd almost stabbed the girl. Kitty separated herself from the door. She took a deep, if shaky, breath. "Thanks."

"You shouldn't sneak up on me," Logan said.

"Sneak?" Bobby Drake challenged as he and Peter crowded into the small room. "Logan, we were shouting and running through the rain. How could that be any more not-sneaking?"

"You could get someone killed." Logan wasn't about to give ground just because the kids had been noisy enough to wake the dead. If he did he'd have to explain that he'd been buried in memories so deep he couldn't hear the real world. Better to change the subject. "What are you kids doing running around in the rain?"

"Kitty wanted to tell us something about the professor," Peter said. Logan had always liked the grave calm that boy could bring into a place. Kitty sent Peter a glare, however.

Okay, private reminiscing about a dead teacher was something Logan could happily leave to them. "I'm probably not interested anyway."

"No." Drake blocked his path to the door, making the cramped space feel even smaller. "The professor's returning, and it's some big secret. Dr. Grey's return was a big secret and look how that turned out. I think everyone needs to be in on this one."

"The professor is back from the dead?" That carried all sorts of unpleasant connotations given the memories Logan had just been reviewing. But the professor being an Eater didn't make sense. Jean had obliterated his body, and Logan had never fought an Eater that wasn't basically a reanimated corpse. Speaking of which, how the hell could the professor come back without a body? "Yeah, I'd say you better start talking."

They took turns explaining the conversation between Ororo and the unseen Scottish woman they overheard outside the professor's office. Kitty finished with, "And this summer, in class, he posed this moral problem to us. He asked if it was right for a dying mutant to take over a brain-dead man's body just because he could. I was sure that the professor was going to argue that it wasn't right. And yet, now it seems he's done it."

Well, that answered one question. "So, the professor has a new body, but the same old mind?"

"Yes, but that's not the point," Kitty protested. "He was teaching us ethics and he did an unethical thing."

Logan wasn't as surprised as Kitty. Xavier had manipulated Jean for his own purposes and managed to suppress the part of her that would have loved Logan. It surprised him how much that episode still hurt. Hell, he'd rather be back in the Nam memories than recall the last days with Jean. He tensed his muscles so the kids wouldn't see him shake.

"I'm sure the professor has his reasons," Logan said, because he wouldn't shred the kids' adoration of their mentor right now. There was nothing to be gained by that. Still, the professor coming back wasn't automatic celebration for Logan it would be for everyone else. Yes, the man's death had hurt, but he couldn't forget the darker facets of personality he'd seen. He'd learned in Vietnam to put friendship aside when necessary.

Scott might understand his position better and think rationally about whether the professor was going to be an asset or hindrance in the war Marie's friend had foretold. But, talking to Scott would have to wait until morning. Logan really didn't want to disturb his time with Marie.

" I want the professor back as much as anyone. " Kitty frowned. " It's just I was sure he'd think taking over another person's body was wrong. I would have staked my grade on it."

"You dragged us out here to complain about a school project." Drake sounded disgusted. "I thought it was something important."

"You're missing the point, Bobby."

"The point is that we've still got a monster out there somewhere who is plotting to burn the world down around our ears, and we don't even know for sure how to find it. Or weren't you paying attention at the meeting this morning?" Drake tried to prowl the room only to be thwarted by lack of space. Logan sympathized. He was beginning to feel restless as well.

"I was paying attention. We're going to rebuild Cerebro and find someone to operate it. Magneto is probably the one we need to find." Kitty's voice rose several octaves as she went on.

"I think it's a good thing the professor is coming back." Peter's voice stilled the argument. "He's going to be able to help us sort a lot of things out."

"Sort things out is exactly what we need to do," Logan grabbed the opportunity to control. A tightness in his gut warned that they shouldn't be trusting anyone right now, though he had no verification for that instinct. "I'll talk to Scott in the morning and we'll figure out how to present what we do know to the professor. Until then, you kids stay calm and don't tell anyone else about any of this. We don't want people jumping to conclusions."

"But we can help--" Drake started.

"You can help by laying low for now," Logan said. The soldiers and Stryker and the current situation were all scratching at the back of his mind, making him edgy an ready to jump at shadows. But, if there was one thing his memories had taught him, it was to never trust the improbable return of a friend.

-----

Marie hugged Scott's waist as they road back to the mansion. She liked the way his body heat warmed her despite both the jacket he wore and the chill rain starting to come down. He pulled into the garage just as the skies really opened up.

"Made it just in time." He tripped the kick stand and took off his helmet.

Marie eased off the back of the bike, reluctant to release him. She knew she should say goodnight and wander up to her room, or down to the kitchen to look for a late supper, anywhere away from him. They needed to part ways here or the good things they'd shared would start to sour on the realization they couldn't spend the night together. She couldn't seem to make her body move.

"It's going to work out, Marie. I promise." Scott fingered the collar of the shirt she was still wearing -- his shirt. He'd coaxed her to keep it when they dressed.

"I know." She brushed her cheek against his fingers, too quickly for her power to hurt him. Maybe if she repeated that idea enough times the doubt would go away. She would sleep in his shirt tonight so she could at least have his scent with her.

Scott was the one with the iron will. He withdrew his hand, swung his leg off the bike and managed to move a few steps toward the stairs. "We'll talk in the morning. We'll figure out how to make this work."

He meant it, Marie told herself. He'd found a new way for them to touch without skin contact. Still, old fears never died without a fight. She couldn't help wondering if what they shared would be enough. He was satisfied now, more or less. But what about in a month, in a year? How long would he stay?

Scott turned then, heading toward the stairs. She saw her own shirt hidden in the pocket of his jacket. Marie smiled, knowing why he'd kept it. They would have something else to share tonight, even though they had to sleep alone.


	23. Chapter 23

Note: I adore everyone who has been sticking with this story despite lags in posting. Thank you all. And special thanks to those who have taken the time to write reviews and be so encouraging. The story is still progressing. It's far from dead. I'm working on chapter 24, which is another long one so is taking some time. But, I thought I should really get this one up.

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or world of X-men. All I own are my own words.

* * *

Chapter 23

By the time Ororo pulled into the lot at JFK her palms were sweaty. She couldn't figure out why she was nervous about meeting Charles' plane. She should be happy. She settled the Bentley into a space and took a moment to soak in the clear, pale morning in front of her. A few wisps of cloud painted the sky but the day would be sunny, perhaps one of the last as autumn began to bite the air. The children would return to Xavier's next week full of stories and excitement. It was one of Ororo's favorite times, and this year it would be sweeter when contrasted against all the drama and tragedy of the summer. She shouldn't be nervous. She should be elated. They'd faced their darkest hour and come through safe but for one casualty.

Was that it? Was she afraid the gift of Charles' return would be snatched away as Jean's had been? Hank used to call Ororo his crusader. She supposed she was that, but her faith had been tested with the most recent tragedies. Jean had come back as a monster. The government, on the verge of recognizing mutants weren't inherently evil, had chosen to not only authorize and encourage the gelding of mutant powers, but had turned that _cure_ into a weapon. Ororo herself had faced her own weaknesses, her own insecurities. The life and cause she cherished was fragile. She'd never be able to think it otherwise again.

And perhaps she was stronger for that change in perspective. Even as she listed all the reasons to be afraid she remembered the reasons to rejoice. Scott had recovered and fought his way back to himself. Marie, who had seemed so weak at times, proved herself resilient and determined. Logan returned, and stayed. They fought Magneto and won. They defeated The Eater in Jean. They rescued Jimmy. And now Charles somehow, magically, resourcefully, had saved himself as well.

"His plane will not fall out of the sky. We won't have an accident on the way home," she told herself. "I'm being silly."

Sunlight flashed white off the windshields of cars all around her. All that cold light brought a quick memory of Jean's death in the snow and the beginning of all their disasters, but this time Ororo shook off the melancholy quickly. Her life, like the day, was getting brighter, not colder.

Her mind had fully calmed by the time she wound her way to the Terminal 4 baggage area. The groan of gears beneath the conveyer, the chatter in a dozen languages that surrounded her, further relaxed Ororo. This place, so full of contrasts -- the excited chaos of crowds made orderly by roped off lines and directional signs -- eased her. It felt familiar and safe. She'd been to this terminal a hundred times to pick up Charles from some overseas conference or vacation. She'd traveled herself often, to Kenya to see the birthplace she couldn't remember, to enjoy Europe with Hank. This noisy baggage area had always been the last stop before home. It was a good place.

She'd been a goddess, or so she was told. She didn't really remember it. She'd been too young. _And a thief_, she thought, remembering that portion of her reckless youth. Now she was teacher, a warrior. Hank's most recent departure came to mind, but strangely without pain. Perhaps she was finally past him the way she was past her childhood.

She smiled at that thought, then let her mind wander over questions she'd been avoiding since the call from Moira last night. She hadn't thought to ask about the particulars of Charles' resurrection. He'd vanished from the Grey house, leading her to believe his body was destroyed and that this resurrection would require a new form. But, she supposed he could have been teleported. Who knew what sort of powers Jean manifested in those final days? Moira had given no details. How different would he look? Would she recognize him as Charles? Would he still need his wheelchair or be hale and healthy of body now? She couldn't help grinning at the thought of Charles actually training with the team.

A portly businessman eyed her appreciatively as he dragged a heavy duffle off the belt. He must have thought she was smiling at him a moment ago. Ororo looked away to dissuade that notion. She usually found Charles waiting at the baggage area when she met him. This time, he wasn't there. Ororo checked her hand held and realized she'd misread the time and arrived early. She truly had been nervous.

Since she had the time, she checked email and phone messages. Hank had left two. One reminded her that there would be a new telepath coming to the school either later this afternoon or tomorrow morning. Ororo started to jot an email to the woman cancelling the visit. Now that Charles was returning, there would be no need for someone to help with Cerebro. Then, she paused. What if Charles didn't have his powers in this new body? She'd have to make sure before telling the new telepath to stay home.

The second message asked for Kurt's contact information. Ororo frowned. This wasn't the first time he'd asked if she could contact the teleporter. It wouldn't be the last time she lied and said no. The truth was, though she trusted Hank, she didn't trust the government he worked for. Hank wasn't suspicious enough.

She could contact Nightcrawler. She had, in fact, met him a couple of times since they parted company after the mission at Alkali Lake. The last time, in the spring, they'd eaten lunch together in New York. It would have been nice if that could have been in a restaurant. Instead, she'd bought hot dogs from a vendor and carried them to a dark corner of Central Park where Kurt wouldn't be noticed by passers-by.

There'd still been a spark there, when their hands touched passing the hot dogs. But, she hadn't been willing to pursue it. She'd been too hurt and angry, still not over Hank. _And now?_ She allowed herself to consider the possibility and found herself thumbing down to the cell phone number Kurt had given her. _Maybe --_

"Ororo." Moira's brogue was unmistakable in the sea of accents.

Turning, Ororo saw the woman herself, slim and professional as ever, but holding herself with an odd stiffness. Moira was pushing Charles' wheelchair and Ororo felt a stab of sorrow that his condition had not improved.

_But it has,_ his mental voice filled her. The sense of him felt both foreign and familiar. _This body will walk and run. But it is weak now from being too long in bed. I need to develop it._

She let herself really look at him. It was Charles, and yet it wasn't. A full head of graying blond hair and neatly trimmed beard were only the most striking changes. His face appeared leaner, but that could have been part of a generalgauntness that made her think the body had recently recovered from disease. His new features, strangely, were similar enough to those she'd known for years that she might have mistaken this man for Charles if she passed him on the street. And the eyes were pure Charles, alert, probing, and almost the same hazel shade as before.

"It's good to see you again," she said, and bent to give him the sort of loose embrace he'd always tolerated from her. His right hand curled around her ribs and patted her lightly, twice on the back. The touch felt familiar, normal.

"It's good to see you too, Ororo." The voice, also, sounded more Charles than not. The register had lowered a tone or so, but the cadence and phrasing was all Charles. He really was back. Relief infused her whole body.

"We should get to the car," Moira said. Her demeanor put Ororo back on guard. Why was Moira so stiff? She wasn't merely professionally cool. She was -- Ororo straightened and studied the woman. Moira's gaze tracked her movement. She was robotic.

_She's tired,_ Charles thoughts intruded again. _It was a long flight. And she's worried about my condition._

_Of course she is_, Ororo thought back. She knew her mental tone was skeptical. Why was Charles reading her mind at this moment? Why was he probing what she thought of Moira? Of anything?

Charles called a porter over and paid him to retrieve their bags. The gestures, the polite authority of his instructions all reminded Ororo that this was her mentor and friend, someone she should trust absolutely. But, the intrusion into her casual thoughts continued to disturb her. Trivial scanning of a person's thoughts went against everything Charles taught her. His stealing of this body, so like and yet clearly not his own, troubled her as well now that she really thought about it. Whoever had owned the body before must have been alive when Charles' spirit possessed it. Had he killed the prior owner? Or merely subjugated him? Would Charles do either? The whole process reminded her, uncomfortably, of Jean.

No. Not Jean. The other. The Eater of Souls.

The image of a dimly lit museum corridor filled her mind. Pools of round light highlighted dolomite statues of dead Egyptian kings, a brightly painted sarcophagus, a case holding ancient, broken pots. She heard the rush of children's laughter pouring past her and her own shouts for the students to order.

She was in the conservatory now. It was yesterday morning. Scott held Marie's hand and talked about killing The Eater of Souls in Jean. She saw him so sharply he seemed to materialize in front of her. She heard his voice, smelled his scent. Abruptly, Scott vanished and she was standing by the professor's grave, weeks ago, arguing with Logan and hoping he wouldn't abandon them. She was fighting Magneto's army while at the same time standing in the gym telling Marie not to lose hope. She was everywhere, and nowhere.

Coming back to herself in the terminal too suddenly, Ororo stumbled. The porter dropped a bag to catch her arm. He encouraged her to sit. She registered his rich Jamaican accent and his concern, but shook her head. She didn't want the porter putting himself in danger by asking too many questions. "I'll be fine. Thank you. I should have eaten breakfast, I suppose."

Her own danger was all too apparent. The Charles she remembered would never have ripped memories from her mind so clumsily. But, there was no other explanation for that sudden flood of disconnected visions. She took several deep breaths and stared at the monster pretending to be her mentor and friend.

_No one at the school knows._ His thoughts marched through her mind, disrupting her own. Any pretence of Charles' gentleness had vanished. _Good. I thought people would have to die._

No compassion tempered that thought, only a vague disappointment that torture and pain would be delayed. Ororo's gaze skated to Moira, who stood passively beside the wheelchair.

_She couldn't be reasoned with_, the false Charles continued. _Physician ethics or some such. I've had to dominate her mind. I hope you will be smarter._

_Oh Moira._ Was she even in her body anymore? Was there anything left of her? Ororo couldn't allow herself to consider the possibilities. The monster was in her mind and had none of Charles' qualms regarding psychic violence. She couldn't even rationalize acceptance with a hope that continued freedom might give her a chance to defeat the creature. She couldn't risk giving it an excuse to destroy her mind. Ororo could only nod acceptance.

_You hate yourself for not fighting,_ the creature masquerading as Charles told her. _I like that._


End file.
